Twenty More Miles
by hplo
Summary: Sequel to Devil Rising. One man's actions brought the world to the brink of annihilation. Now that same man finds that, like everything before and everything that shall come, the road to redemption is a difficult one indeed...
1. Awaken

**A/N; Finally here is the sequel to Devil Rising. I said I was going to do one and now it is here. To be honest this is culmination of about three years work as I wrote two before this but gave up on both. As for this one, it incorporates elements from both. It was originally inspired by a fic by Gwendy called the Kazama-Mishima Chronicles. Short but good. Now this is the full fruition inspiration given both to Razer Athane and M M Richter XIII for their fics. As for why this is called Twenty More Miles, look at the Soilwork song. That song is about Jin Kazama, trust me.**

**Disclaimer; These characters are the property of Namco Bandai Ltd. and their respective affiliates and I am in no way intending to cause deformation to the franchise. I'm doing this simply to tell a story. **

Chapter 1; Awaken

_Blood...?_

_Who's... blood?_

His blood, the blood of the fallen.

_What's happening?_

Sand half-covered the body of Jin Kazama as he awoke from darkness. He could hear... what could he hear? He dusted off the sand from his right ear with a ruined gauntlet before the sounds of destruction blasted through.

_What the hell-?!_

He heard rumbles of thunder overhead, the cracking of dark lightning rendering the natural world asunder with chaos. He felt that crawling sensation, a sensation of knowing yet not wanting to know because he knew that presence, that fowl darkness..._ Devil._

_I have to do something!_

A mistake.

He tried to pull himself up with his hands but he fell back down like a newborn babe still fresh from the womb. Jin gritted his teeth as the pain came in waves like tsunamis, one after the other, constantly crashing into him with relentless force. His vision blurred for a moment. He squinted, the blur was gone. Now he just lay in his own pool of blood, the grating taste of sand in his mouth, and the laughter of the Heavens played into his ears like dark music.

He closed his eyes.

_What happened anyway?!_

_I remember killing Kazuya...then Azazel. Everything was going so well... until..._

His eyes opened again.

_Heihachi...bastard... he killed Nina...then I died... did I?_

But he was still here.

Before he could ponder his continued existence, he heard within the maelstrom of noise a single note of laughter that he recognised so well.

"Heihachi...?" he groaned through his bloodied lips.

It was, yet his laughter sounded so... distorted.

He closed his eyes again, how long had he to live?

_I have to know..._

It was pushing those endless tides but he clenched his fists as hard as he could. His body started to shift in the sands as he started to bring his mind out of the darkness.

_C'mon!_

His body started to move through the flames, his slow movements becoming a crawl across the baking sand.

_Got to get up._

He climbed to his feet on his legs, a feeling of enflamed nerves running through his body. He started to stumble across the sand towards the mayhem.

_What's happening here?!_

He saw the madness of the scenario unfolding before his eyes and then he heard the laugh again.

_Heihachi... he's causing this?!_

No! Not even Heihachi had that kind of power... did he?

The black lightning was coursing everywhere in waves of uncontrolled, brutal power, destroying everything. It was then as one of the waves hit of the Mishima's horrid power that he finally understood.

Devil.

Heihachi.

_Oh no..._

His last thought as the wave of lightning hit his body with a crack.

Then he was gone.

***

Silence.

For once there was silence.

Asuka blinked.

Was this reality?

A question that she had asked for the last six months of her life. It was always answered with a punch to the arm. She brought her bare foot up in a circling kick and then that instinctive reflex, the rush of blood to the muscles, allowed her to change with dexterity as she rotated her right leg underneath her in a circular motion. Two, three times then...an elbow to the face!

Slam! The impact of her barefoot upon bare wooden planks.

Silence.

No staccato gunfire.

No pounding of shells.

Just peace.

For once she was glad.

"Asuka!" called the mellow voice of her father.

"Coming!"

Her feet padded out onto the veranda as she saw her father staring with sleepy eyes over the large yet fading lawn.

"Shouldn't you be going off to school?" he asked.

"Papa... you're still injured..."

Her father chuckled.

"A sad, old ass like me is not going to fade in one day," he replied, pushing the thin spectacles up on the bridge of his nose.

"But..."

"Listen, Asuka, don't fade, find yourself a new lease on life," he instructed, "education will allow you to pursue your dreams."

The same lecture she had heard countless times before. A same lecture that reminded her one day she must take up her name and fly from the roots that bound her. Still it hurt every time she heard it. Asuka exhaled a long sigh before she headed back indoors. Her father watched her go with a glint of his pride shining in his eyes. The sweet smell that wafted on his scent spectrum turned his attention back to the single sakura tree that grew in the middle of the withered garden, it's vibrant pink petals clinging to the flowers in desperation. He closed his eyes. It was a reminder that if Asuka wouldn't take flight the sakura tree would shed its blossoms...

***

Twenty minutes later, Asuka sat on one of the buses looking out of the dull, scratched window, a result of the war. She considered this for a moment as she looked out of the window. From the tallest of skyscrapers to the smallest of apartments, all had been levelled or damaged with structures that now resembled the Mittens of Time and other such geographical features. Either way as to the buildings the same happened with man.

"Look there's Kauwazuchi-san!" came the cry of a female youth.

_Kauwazuchi-san?!_

Her head was brought as far forward as possible to see the CEO of a once great company not wearing a pristine grey suit but just burlap rags as he tries to find work for himself among the squalor of the other damned within the city.

_No, not the city. The world._

Asuka continued to watch the world her uncharacteristic silence until the sight of her school caught her attention. She pressed the bell and the bus came to a shuddering halt.

"Thanks," she said to the driver as she walked down the steps .

The driver nodded in return and then drove off, leaving Asuka standing in front of her new school. Even after the bombing runs, this school had come off intact, the solid square structures standing stalwart against the world and above all this the muscular, imposing figure that was Heihachi Mishima, his body formed of a gold that would never be tarnished.

She smiled as she adjusted the satchel on her arm and walked in through the iron gates, each one emblazoned with that name in fire; Mishima Financial Group. She heard laughter from children of younger years, a happiness that was a solidity away from the world of pain and hurt that dwelt beyond these gates.

_Ain't abandon all ye hope anymore that's for sure._

"Asuka!!"

Ah Xiaoyu was here!

***

_Damn photographers!_

"Mr. Alexanderson, what are you planning to do now with the Tekken force?"

"No comment," snapped Lars in reply.

The man of bears was not in a happy mood. God he wished he could show them why he is was compared to a bear. Damn press, sticking noses and finger in places that shouldn't be touched.

"Uh, sir?" whispered a voice to his side in the melee of people.

Lars shifted his head to listen to the attendant.

"There's a call for you."

He nodded as he continued to wade through the packs of journalists hungry for his flesh. Then one voice broke through the pack.

"Is it true that you are the son to Heihachi Mishima?"

Silence within this hexagonal dome of blue crystal.

Lars the bear turned to face the man, his eyes the cold ice of frozen shock. He could feel his bottom lip quivering as his eyes saw the man behind him, a being of tall yet thin stature. The journalist surveyed him with his spectacled eyes, each one searching for that answer.

"Why did you...?"

Lars stopped as he shook his head.

"Why do you associate me with him?" he continued, his head downcast.

The journalist adjusted his tie and coughed before replying,

"It was a rumour that I heard."

Lars' mouth was pushed to his upper lip as he stopped himself from snarling like a dog.

"You think that was something to make a story of?"

"Well isn't it?"

He took two steps across to the white tiled floor until the two were nose to nose.

"Let me tell you something," he threatened, his voice becoming cold yet close as the journalist shrank back, "do not associate me or my comrades with that **man **every again, you hear me? Print whatever the hell you want but never, **ever **talk about him or us in the same article. He is dead to all of us."

Not one sound was heard as Lars and his entourage walked through the pack of de-clawed journalists, every one dumbfounded and limp. His footsteps could be heard echoing away in the distance, each one harder and faster than before.

_I've got no time for this._

Indeed Lars had little time for anyone or anything these days.

_Alisa's going to hate me for this._

Fortunately Alisa Boskonovich was one of the those people he did make time for. He let out a very long sigh. Work, work and more bloody work... there's no end! I mean when could he actually get to see her again?!

"Uh... sir he's calling you again..."

Lars took the phone from his assistant's hand with a pained breath. Flicking open the red handset and pressing the call button, he answered,

"Hello?"

***

"So how's your father?"

Xiaoyu's first question picked at Asuka's bones within the sea of mindless chattering.

"He's... fine," she replied after a little hesitation, her voice filled with chirpy benevolence.

Xiaoyu's exuberant smile softened.

"Okay, that's good," she replied.

The two remained in silence within the canteen as they picked and ate at their food, both gazes averted from each other. Xiaoyu picked up the carton of juice next to her, tore open the top before placing the straw into the hole.

Ssslurp.

That long drawn out sound of air howling within a sewer.

Ssslurp.

Slam!

"Damn it, Xiaoyu! That's fuckin' annoying!" exclaimed Asuka, her eyebrows pulled into a scowl as her fist settled back onto the table.

All Xiaoyu did was smile in reply.

"Sorry."

Asuka let out a long sigh with a few muttered words.

"What's wrong?" repeated her friend again.

"Tousan... the Kazama Dojo, it's all falling apart..." her words were of fluid tears.

Her fist slammed on the table again.

Bang.

"Fuckin..."

_...Mishima Zaibatsu!_

Bang.

"Fuckin..."

…_War!_

Bang!

"Fuckin'... Kazama Jin!"

The last curse was ejaculated in full fury. Her lips were formed into furious demonic snarls that swore at even the sound of that name. To speak his name was a taboo to her and if it was it would only be in front of an insult. Asuka in her anger only barely noticed the silence that had dropped over this room like an iron curtain at the mention of _that man's_ name.

"**What the hell are you lot looking at?!**" shouted Asuka to the sea of unanimous eyes.

All gazes averted back to their food, the mouths of the many slowly returning to full volume. She rotated back in her seat to the slackening face of Xiaoyu.

"Asuka..."

"Don't you **dare **feed me any of your Jin bullshit!" she snarled in cut, "To me Kazama Jin is dead! To our family Kazama Jin is dead and hopefully to the whole damn world, Kazama Jin is dead!"

There were stubborn roots in her voice that would have ended any protest. Xiaoyu closed her eyes for a moment letting out a very long sigh.

"Asuka..." repeated Xiaoyu with a slowly forming smile as her gaze returned to her friend, "everything could be a lot worse."

"They could be a lot better too," retorted Asuka, her perturbed nature sliding off her body on a cloak of red scales.

Xiaoyu shrugged.

"We're still at peace..."

Asuka nodded.

_At least no more violence._

"...and the fact that Lars and Heihachi are putting the world back together."

Asuka smirked at hearing their names.

"Sorry, where you talking about Lars?"

Both sets of young eyes turned to meet the gaze of a certain pink-haired young woman.

"Who are you?" asked Asuka, her thoughts intrigued.

The reply was of non-hesitant with a calm smile.

"My name is Lisa B."

***

Lars opened the door at the top of the staircase, his heavy boots walking out onto the small metal gantry amidst the small ocean of blue glass, each small window reflecting fragments of that eternal spectrum of a single colour.

Thump.

_I thought he would be up here._

Thump.

_Where is he?_

Thump.

"Hello, Lars..."

The deep voice resonated in the wind's song as it blew a gale over them. Lars whirled around to face a silver-suited Raven standing on the corner of the railings opposite him. His face locked in calm as his muscles relaxed.

"I expected quicker reactions from you, Lars," chastised Raven with a shake of his head.

"I expected you to get here faster," replied the bear, his manner of a trite bluntness.

Raven snorted.

"Cold isn't it?" he remarked, his ninja scarf whipping about his shoulders.

Lars raised an eyebrow.

"What's with the small talk? You've become social all of a sudden?"

Raven leapt off the railings before bending upwards in slow motions, the sound of that howling wind was a single tone as Raven walked over to Lars side in heavy footsteps. The gloved hands of the ninja gripped against the smooth metal railing.

"It's cold isn't it?" repeated Raven.

Lars stood in silence, unsure what to answer.

_Is it really that cold?_

"The world's about to get a lot colder," continued Raven, "It's Jin Kazama, his body is missing."

Lars eyes widened in pure clarification.

"What do you mean?" demanded Lars, his voice far more intense.

"We sent out two search teams to the sight of Azazel's temple but we found nothing, only blackened ruins."

Lars took in a very sharp breath as his eyes dilated for a single second.

_What the hell?!_

"You didn't find anything?!" repeated Lars, his voice sharpened with a bone edge.

Raven shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. Lars massaged the temples of his forehead as the throb of bell inscribed with runes pounded in his head.

_Damn headaches._

The small unzip of a pocket as Lars' gazed downwards.

"Here," offered Raven.

He looked up.

"Aspirin?" asked Lars, taking it from Raven's hand, "I thought all your pouches were filled with just weapons."

"It's amazing what a ninja can hide under a jockstrap."

Lars gaze jolted back to Raven to see the faintest flicker of a smirk forming on the stoic shinobi's face before he turned away.

"I'll keep you updated," promised Raven without turning his gaze back.

Lars watched as for a moment as Raven was there.

A jump.

A flash of purple shade.

He was gone.

***

Along corridors of gun metal, deep footsteps trod. Steel-toed boots and leather shoes were bound in unison.

"How is he?"

The gruff voice of Heihachi Mishima.

"He is doing well considering the condition he is in."

The calm relativity of a feminine voice.

The feet turned a corner to the left, pale light of alpine blue illuminating the two creased brows.

"Which door?" snapped Heihachi again.

Julia pushed the glasses to her eyes, only allowing for a slight frown and for her answer to be footsteps. Her hand rested on the smooth, round doorknob before she turned it with a slow and gentle motion. The door squeaked on the hinges as she entered.

Beep.

The high-pitch computer whine of a simulated heartbeat.

Beep.

"I expected worse..." observed Heihachi in a low growl, folding his arms.

Beep.

_Uncaring bastard..._

Beep.

The thoughts of a masqued woman.

Beep.

The sufferings of a broken angel.

On the smooth metal table, lay a bare naked man, his flesh white and taut.

To a point.

The side face-down was blackened and charred, a remnant of a pyre of cold flames. One white wing lay clasped over his body, the other burnt to a rag of flesh and feather.

The wing twitched.

A sad display of protection for a child. The single right eyeball remained open in a vacant stare that was marked by plains of eternal ice within a sphere.

Silent words are uttered in illusions.

No longer Mr. Kazama who saluted on a million recruitment posters. No longer Mr. Kazama the CEO for the Mishima Zaibatsu. No longer Jin Kazama the beloved child of Jun Kazama.

No longer... anything.

Just a burnt out effigy, cast from the Heavens and left to rot in a grave of monochrome light. Heihachi's eyes hid the demon under the lake as he looked at his grandson.

_Only a matter of time now..._

Beep.

_Patience is the key..._

Beep.

_Jin, I will break you._

Beep.

**Dictionary;**

**Tousan - Father.**

**Papa - Affectionate term for father.**


	2. Limbo

**A/N; Sorry this chapter took so damn long. Christmas and writer's block were to blame unfortunately.**

Chapter 2; Limbo

Ting.

The light, one-note bell of opening lift doors.

"Lift doors opening."

The well-built figure followed the obvious statement of the monosyllabic voice and walked through the doors of encased gold stamped with that ever present capital G.

_Same damn routine every day._

The figure remained masked behind his piercings as he stood, two hands tied to front. That twang of the music resonated in his skull as the lift whirred up like crows with drill beaks gouging into his brain.

Just like it always did.

He crunched his sizeable lower jaw against his top teeth.

Just like he always did.

Ting.

Another ring of the bell, another slide of the doors, another entrance of a crop-cut, crimson haired women wearing the latest furs ripped from the underside of a now extinct species. Her hips swished next to him before she pirouetted on a single heel. It was graceful...

_For a hooker._

The figure's narrow sidelong glance turned to the women of black sunglasses. The women didn't even cast a second glance.

The lift doors closed again. The music started again.

The figure let out a sigh.

The women started to hum to the music.

The grinding of teeth and the widening of eyes of fire beneath a low brow as the man felt his knuckles self-cracking. Still his gaze remained steadfast to the buttons of the lift playing out a lightshow in primary colours.

_Same fucking annoyances._

"You were staring at my arse."

First claret to scarlet daggers.

"Yeah I was staring at an ass."

The prize-fighter hits back with worn boxing gloves.

The doors open again with that same bell.

"Mr. Dickinson..."

"...I need the reports..."

"...Monday, they must be in by Monday..."

The doors close.

The bell rings again.

"See you've had more breast implants, lady."

"As if I need them."

"You do."

"Least I don't need it on my face."

"Heh, only a drill will sought yours out, lady."

"A precision drill, of course."

"Nah, more of a jackhammer."

"Which you're about as subtle as."

"I know."

"You also know about having a small dick?"

"More than enough to please an adult like you."

"I have more exquisite tastes."

"Yeah, it takes more than one doesn't it?"

"Screw you."

"Already did... many times, lady."

"All unpleasant memories."

"For one who was screaming '**oh Bruce!**' so much."

"I was exaggerating."

"You're a shit liar."

"You're a too stupid to lie."

"You're too shallow to think."

"I'll cut off your dick."

"See?"

"I'll do it right now!"

"Trust me you won't."

All were intended as rapier thrusts.

The reality?

All were as subtle as sledgehammer strikes in a toy shop.

The two remained in silence, thinking a unanimous thought.

_Same damn insults._

The lift ground to a monotone halt.

First floor.

The doors pulled back to reveal a polished marble floor layered in yellow light until it grew brightest around the single figure sitting at the desk. The figure looked up from the desk of oak with a smile of youth.

"Anna, Bruce, good to see you."

"Yeah, you to Leo," replied Bruce with no hint of a smile.

Same employees.

New employer.

***

Beep.

Julia Chang's eyes perused over Jin Kazama's readings. Her pen touched the paper with a tick, all life signs normal.

"Anything new?"

The dry voice of her colleague Dr. Keller announced his arrival. Julia's head turned with slow movement to meet the wrinkled visage of her friend's face. She shook her head in response.

"Doesn't surprise me, six months and he doesn't even blink," he observed.

He cocked his head.

"He should be clinically dead. Mind you, we are dealing with a Mishima so..."

Yeah, a Mishima a member of a family that had spread devastation and destruction across thousands of landscapes, all stamped with a copyright symbol on them. Julia's eyes crossed to the man in question.

_He's done more damage than most..._

Did he deserve this though?

She hoped for what it was worth that he never had to wake up.

***

_Kaachan!_

_Those were the times..._

_The fragrance of fresh morning dew dripping from the leaves._

_The dome of light protecting an untouched paradise of tree and plant, all connected by their gnarled roots under the rich soil._

_The feeling of grass after the fall of rain felt like the true touch of nature upon the body of Jin Kazama as he lay there one backhand laying on his brow._

_Yakushima._

_Home._

_Kaachan!_

_A child's cry of his joy._

_Once._

_Come here, Jin!_

_The voice of the trees, the earth and his mother._

_Her white cotton dress swayed in the wind as she chased after his child-self in bare feet and caught him with her hands. She lifted the giggling child up in her arms and held him close to her warmth as a small smile curved the edge of her lips._

_Peace, a once lost dream._

_Jun Kazama._

_Dead in fire, burning timber and bloodied fists._

_How long she may rest._

_He continued to rest his hand on his face, his eyes averted to the heavens._

_He rested in a world of clichés, the twisted world of marching armies under pointless symbols an indistinct visage of islands in that place called "somewhere."_

_More child's laughter and a gentle bird's laugh from his mother._

_Jin smiled, if only a little._

_Then a faint sound._

_His eyes burst into awareness as he heard it._

_"It" was a melody of dark harmony, a music of blended synthi-harps and slow ambient notes with the slow tap of a drum beat all linked by the clean notes of a piano. It was a music composed by electrical angels. The music rained down upon the scene as the voices of his mother and his younger self became drowned within the soft waves. He lifted himself up as the sky was being torn to paper shreds by an impending darkness._

_"What's happening?!" he shouted._

_The music consumed the laughter and joy. Jin flicked his head left and right, his expression fear flung in high points._

_Is he awakening?!_

_"Jin, do not panic..."_

_A serene voice._

_"You are merely moving on..."_

_"I don't want to awaken!" he protested back, standing to his feet and shouting to the heavens._

_"As I said you are merely moving on."_

_The laughter drowned._

_The world dissolved into shreds of paper darkness that fell around him in a new autumn._

_The last blade of grass disappeared into the whirlpool of oblivion._

_He was frozen in mid-air in the standing position._

_"Uh..."_

_His flicked to the left and right searching for an unseen ledge._

_His mouth opened to say other words._

_Then he fell into nothingness..._

***

Jin's good eye blinked.

"Oh he moved," regarded Keller with mock interest.

***

_Her name's Lisa B huh?_

Asuka stared out at the sky of blue as she wondered about her new classmate from the conversation yesterday.

_She didn't exactly say that much about herself, always smiling though..._

"Kazama-san?"

She blinked as the surly voice of her teacher broke over the ranks of students sitting at their plastic desks.

"Er... yes?"

"What is the name of the first circle of Hell, kohai-san?"

"Um... Limbo?"

"Correct and could you expand on it?"

_Limbo..._

A hand flew up among the random of others. That one was picked by the impatient gaze of the teacher.

"Limbo is the first circle of Hell where the poet Dante met he met the poets Homer and the philosopher Ovid. The poet Dante was said to have been influenced by the fields of Elysium for the imagery of this circle."

"Very good."

Asuka's eyes widened as Lisa replied with only a nod.

_That was like listening to an encyclopaedia..._

The sincerest of all encyclopaedias.

The clear ring of the bell as the metal hammer pulverised it with repetitive beats per second.

_Finally!_

"Remember class to finish your assignment for Monday," called the teacher over the fast shuffling and struggling of chairs and voices.

_I've got more important things to think about than your stupid essay..._

Asuka's footsteps pounded out through the thin doorway in a rush echoed by twenty one of the twenty two other classmates. As she exited through the doorway and into the corridor of chattering groups she turned her head to see Lisa packing her books away with careful precision, scanningthe cover of each one, seeing more information in one page than many students would see in a lifetime. Asuka raised a quizzical eyebrow as she watched and waited for the slow footsteps of the new girl.

"Hey."

Lisa smiled.

"You're Kazama-san aren't you? "The kid who is a constant pain in the arse."

Asuka's eyes dilated to the size of cat pupils.

"What did you say about me?" she snarled.

"All I said was that you are Kazama-san and that you are a "the kid who is a constant pain in the arse," or so I've heard."

"Who from?" demanded Asuka, her voice rising in perturbation.

"A group of boys, I think, I quoted from the one with spiky, black hair."

"Miyagi," muttered Asuka, "I'm going to fry his ass."

Lisa raised a finger.

"Don't you think by frying him that it will have to involve some kind of heating device such as a pan or a flamethrower and don't you think that Mr. Miyagi might die from severe burns because of this?"

Asuka's eyebrows cocked a little.

"It was just a form of expression," she corrected with a bemused smirk.

"Oh, I am not familiar with that expression."

"Heh, you sound like a computer."

"I guess but I'm still human."

Asuka's smirk widened into a smile as the two of them walked through the crowds of people.

"So where were you born?"

"Russia," replied Alisa.

"Russia? You sound Japanese!"

"Yes I was born in Russia but I was raised in Japan."

This was the start of a barrage of questions.

"Who were you raised by?"

"What school did you go to?"

"Why are you going here?"

Lisa answered with smiles and warmth, imparting bites of knowledge to her friend. Asuka felt her knowledge swell of this new friend of hers, a glutted feeling that warmed her heart and mind in small flames.

Careful wordplay though is the greatest of guards.

Little did Asuka know that Lisa B could locate thirty targets within a second and reduce them to dust. Little did she know that Lisa B could unleash chainsaws from her hands and carve Asuka into a thousand pieces. Little did she know that Alisa Boskonovitch had the athletic ability of most Olympic champions combined.

Mind you not many people knew this.

So hush.

***

Leo lay her hands on the clear reflections of a cityscape that shimmered on the steel table's surface.

_They're going to be arriving soon..._

She kept her right hand tapping on the table in the silence as she tugged on the chest of her seamless grey suit, pulling the collar away from a rather sore neck.

_Damn suit. I'm like a piece of metal._

Strong, rigid metal that she would have to be as the silver doors slid open to let the ranks of black suited board members in, spreading out from the rank and file, coming to life from armoured automata as soon as they sat in their black leather chairs. Leo watched every single one of them walk to their respective places, place themselves on their seats, each with their black leather pads of incongruity laid in front of them.

Then the spark came.

She saw the green numbers of millions, billions even trillions run in rows in the irises of their eyes, all connected in this small network of fifteen. Their limbs moved of their own accord to their wills if they had been loosed from long strings that stretched deep within themselves and they turned their heads in varying speeds all towards one source, expressions of differing masks, some of the smiles of fool's gold, others the studied seriousness of old. They all however had one interest though.

Leo Kliesen.

_They're either going to bite or burn me._

It was always a gamble when throwing the black dice. Leo pushed herself to her feet, the leather chair's metal feet squealing against the floor. She cleared her throat before speaking.

"I welcome you all here today, the first item I would like to discuss is the new robotics project..."

"Oh you mean the one that is costing the company a quarter of its defence budget yet yields no results," piped one board member.

"Well the Jack robots..."

"The Jack robots have become obsolete, they were outmatched by the Mishima Zaibatsu's Nancy units," cut in another with a razor beak.

Leo let out an inward groan.

_They're going to do both._

"May I remind the board that the Nancy Unit is slow, cumbersome and impotent?"

Leo's sight glanced at the doorway to see the sharp corners of a black tuxedo filled by a man of silver hair, black shades and a frill shirt.

"The Jack unit has limitless potential," continued the suit of a man, "it has survived over twenty years of service, technology improving every aspect of its design yet its main outline has always stayed the same. With the technological stampede of time, it will only become greater."

The board remained silent as the man bowed in front of the doorway.

"I apologise for my lateness, Ms. Kliesen."

Leo smiled a small smile.

"Please, Mr. Chaolan come in and sit down."

"Thank you," he replied with a nod of his head before he walked down the right side.

Silence was a reception Leo knew that Lee Chaolan always had when he entered. He would walk towards his chair in that walk of rigid elegance. A silver swan with his head held high, breast pointed out yet wings clipped to the side. He approached the chair, pulling it back. A small smile for Leo as his eyes flashed from behind the shades before the silver blade was sheathed within an expression of bladed shields.

"Now, ladies and gentleman should we move onto another order of discussion?" continued Lee.

The silenced board members nodded in unified synchronicity again as they withdrew into the robots they so loathed.

***

Ba-dunk.

"Bruce."

Ba-dunk.

"Why do you carry that ball with you?"

Ba-dunk.

Bruce answered as the hard leather baseball was caught in his rough, right palm.

"Nostalgia."

"Nostalgia?"

"Yeah, memories..."

Anna raised a scarlet eyebrow.

"I didn't think memories were that important to you."

"Well they are so quit asking."

Anna's eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"I was just interested, you dumb brute."

"I thought the only interests you had were of men and sex."

"As I said, you're a dumb brute."

Bruce took no conscious notice of the studied seriousness of the venom she had lanced at him. The two of them remained in silence, both leaning against the sides of the doors to the meeting, neither speaking for three minutes until the echo of screeching chairs and the quiet yet audible talk of monotone voices was an announcement that the meeting was at an end.

Bruce watched the business suits of pinstripe and black march out of the room in leisure-step formation. The tapping of Anna's heels announced his time to enter.

"Ah, Lee Chaolan, it _is _good to see you again."

"My pleasure, Miss Anna Williams," replied Lee with a luxurious bow of his head.

Bruce let out a deep, growling sigh at seeing the sight.

"You okay, Bruce?"

His gaze shifted to see the gaze of Leo, staring at him with a half-smile.

"When did you start caring?"

"It's the responsibility of a employer to look out for his employees."

Bruce smirked.

"Hmph, you sound like a textbook."

" Yeah, mum taught me a lot of things in my life," she replied, rubbing the collar of her jacket.

"Your mum probably doesn't know that much about business then."

"Hey," corrected Leo with a lowered voice verging on anger, "my mother was a top business executive within this company, she _knew _how to run things."

"Running and playing in this world are two very different things," continued Bruce.

"I don't want to play any games, I just want to run this business," she affirmed with a straight gaze.

Bruce studied her from within those deep sockets.

"You sure? You'll continued to be eaten alive by those bastards on the board, if you don't start playing like a pro."

"How do you mean 'playing like a pro'?"

"When you walk into this room, you lose all emotion and focus on your goals."

Leo's blue eyes hardened to his gaze.

"I am not going to cut off my emotions anywhere," she retorted, "it's who _I _am."

"An arrogant kid like you will get slaughtered then," growled Bruce.

"I'm not arrogant. I just want to restore this world to order," she said, lowering her gaze as if seeing invisible landscapes rising to their firmaments.

"You think can do that though by being so damn passive and emotional?" he attacked again.

"I want to do this _my _way, even if I you are right I am **not **becoming like my **predecessor**."

Her voice stressed on the syllables of the last word, every one wishing to break a name forth, to spit it in hate but she kept her speech in check, preventing herself from breaking that taboo.

Bruce eyelids lowered at the mention of the name of his once employer.

_I wonder if she even knows that I was one of the people involved in Kazuya's plot?_

"Have you two finished yet?"

Anna's voice cut through, causing them to turn.

"Lee and I were waiting for you," she scolded.

"Well I..." objected Lee with a calm voice and small smile.

"Don't disagree, Lee!" she snapped without looking.

Lee letting out an inward sigh and retreated.

Bruce chuckled in his gruffness.

"Can't handle her Lee? Not many people can," he stated with experience .

A wry smile curved onto Anna's lips as Lee adjusted himself.

"What I am trying to say, " he corrected, "was that I have an appointment with someone, so until next time..."

He bowed in a great flourish of extravagance.

"I bid you all adieu."

Bruce watched him leave with a rather distasteful smirk.

_Lee Chaolan... the only guy I know who walks and poses with a swan stuck up his arse._

***

Clicks.

The lights dimmed into nothingness in the narrow corridors. The polished surface of the floor became the reflectors of a dimming sun, the ripples of colourless reflections paving the way for the visitors of the night.

Julia Chang was one such being as she finished her last set of rounds.

Click.

The door closed in this emptiness.

_Why am I here?_

The same question she had asked herself over and over again.

_Because of Heihachi Mishima._

The answer grated on her mind with rough palms, her benefactor's claws sinking into the rhetoric of her thoughts. She pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose as she opened the last door. The lights of Jin Kazama's mortuary slab still emblazoned his body in hues of bleached colours. Even when comatose death still lingered with this man. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, her eyes tracing the single black feathers enfolded within the dulled white feathers of his wing before her gaze dropped and she ticked the box.

"My, my you are enamoured with that man aren't you?"

She turned with a half-smile in recognition to Dr. Keller's old form in the doorway.

"I'd rather work for G-Corporation," she replied, shrugging.

"Figures," chuckled Keller.

He watched as she pressed the two switches beside his bed and the lights flicked out of existence.

"You going?" he asked.

"Yeah, Dr. Crosgrove is covering for me for the rest of the night."

"Crosgrove? The guy's actually showing some humanity?"

"Crosgrove isn't that bad."

"You wait until you work here for a lengthy period of time, the charm will go."

The footsteps of the two faded into muffled as Julia closed the door behind with a short click. Their voices fade out and the world for Jin Kazama is plunged into a starless space, a feeding bag the only source of unknown comfort...

***

_Falling..._

_He was still falling..._

***

The bell's ring called an end to the daily cycle.

The rush of the younger years' feet to leave through the gates while the older years pace in their groups, all their chattering rising into the leaded heavens. Asuka was part of one group of three that walked toward the school gate.

"So, how's Miharu-chan?"

"She's ill at the moment," explained Xiaoyu with a small smile, "but she said that she is getting better."

Alisa turned her head to the pair as they talked within that sphere and her eyes surveyed them. They talked about someone or something called Miharu, a being they had connected with.

Truly how?

"Where's Panda?"

"Grandpa won't let her out after Kuma tried to mount her for the fifty second time."

"What did she do?"

"She lost her temper and ripped off his..."

Xiaoyu lent into Asuka's ear as if whispering the greatest secret in the world in that high-pitched whisper.

Alisa's sensors picked up every letter.

Asuka burst out in peals of laughter at this great secret that her and Xiaoyu knew so well.

"I'm not surprised! Randy bastard deserved it!" chuckled Asuka.

"Kuma's not going to be able have children now..." replied Xiaoyu with a long, depressed sigh.

"Xiaoyu, the bear's a pervert!"

Asuka was still laughing in her words when she tried to reason with Xiaoyu. Alisa just smiled, her attentiveness attuned to every word as they reached the school gates.

"I'll see you tomorrow," piped Xiaoyu within the mass, "grandpa's going to pick me up from around the corner."

The pig-tailed girl waved her hand in the air for one last time, her arm becoming drowned within the droves of blue and white. Asuka's replicated the wave of her friend in frantic action. Alisa waved with a gentle motion until she was gone.

"Anyone picking you up?" asked Asuka as she turned back.

"Yes, Lee oba-kun," replied Alisa.

Two blares of a horn caused the Alisa's head to spin, if for once in a metaphorical fashion, her jump of joy characterised by a simple rise of the eyebrows and the widening of an ever present smile.

"He's here."

Asuka's eyes widened when she saw the car, a vehicle of black lines that all intertwined in a flow of smooth form, creating the shell of a super car.

_The guy's loaded!_

Her eyebrows lowered as she thought about it.

_Wonder what other departments "Uncle Lee" is trying to make up in?_

Another blare of the horns, the Uncle trying to make a quick entry and exit.

"I'll see you tomorrow," said Alisa in her light voice.

Asuka responded with a single wave and a smile. She watched her friend run to the car in small steps that bounded on the ground with an unparalleled grace. It was as if she was watching a child trying to walk yet know all the movements and muscle-reflexes that are needed for walking.

The left tinted window purred down to greet Alisa's face. Asuka tilted her head to the right, her eyes searching for the character of Uncle Lee. As her eyes settled on the man of sharp features and jet silver hair, the edges of a smirk pulled at the sides of her lips.

_Guess he ain't that bad looking... he's still a showing-off prick though..._

"Climb in the other side," he instructed to Alisa, pushing up the aviator shades on the bridge of his nose.

Asuka's eyes narrowed at the accent of an established class. The high pitch jabbed at her nerves as she could see in her mind's eye the silver spoon poked into a "Uncle Lee's" mouth since early childhood, his parents feeding him caviar and buying him an island _just _for his teddy, Shinji. By twelve, a boarding school snob, by eighteen, the undergraduate of arseholes and by thirty the pampered prince of a company that he hadn't even worked for!

_Bastard._

Asuka forced another smile as her friend waved a second time before climbing into the car. The engine rumbled into life as her gaze retracted back to that hateful man. He turned his head in a slow movement and flashed a small smile at her.

She responded with only a face of crossed eyebrows and a tightened mouth, a response practiced with her father. That expression remained as the man simply turned and roared down the clearing road, it's howls and screeches fading as the talking of the dissipating groups dispersed as well .

"Phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

The breath lasted in an invisible echo from her curled lips as she turned and walked in the opposite direction.

***

"So you doing anything tonight?" asked Dr. Keller as the two of them walked into the deserted car park, a place that formed a horizon on its own.

"Not particularly," replied Julia, "you?"

"Going out for a drink, want to come?"

Julia shook her head as she walked to her car.

"What? You still fancy Kazama?"

She snorted with a note of a chuckle.

"No, I've got work to catch up on," she replied, meeting his gaze with a small smile.

"You're too tied up in your work, you know Julia?" sighed Keller as they approached his black Mercedes.

"I'd rather spend my time saving life than destroying it."

As his wizened hand reached for the silver door handle, he looked back up with both eyes narrowed and a smirk beneath his long nose.

"Why do they employ you here?"

No mirth or arrogance was evident in his voice, it was merely a question.

"Training in medicine was part of the course. Why do you think I graduated from the West Coast with First Degree and Honours?"

Keller smirked at Julia's confidence.

"Guess Heihachi hasn't got his head so far stuck up his arse then."

Her eyebrows lowered slightly at the remark.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just... well, the Zaibatsu isn't exactly known to react well to insults."

Keller laughed in the face of her concern.

"What? You think that Heihachi's going to care about what _I _say? Julia, he's rich enough to buy a thousand of me."

"He had a man beaten for his lack of manners at a dinner party he held once."

"...So what? He won't care."

Julia didn't reply as Keller pulled himself into the car, her eyes only following his movements. He closed the door and started the engine, the deep rumbles shaking the surface of the metal bonnet in this wasteland of tarmac. He waved once which she reciprocated with another wave. Tomorrow she would see him again.

Whether it was with bullet through his skull or not, she did not know.

Julia glanced at the Mishima Industrial Complex, it's towers of steel and glass a shimmering mirage of reality under the approach of the sky in its hues of vanilla. She turned and started away down that long car park towards her car.

_The sunset looks quite beautiful._

Her gaze had been drawn to the other side, to the far off horizon over and behind those towers where men in suits dwelt. The sun was clear on the horizon as it set, a picture of oil colours painted with a natural flow, lighting up the sky in an orange that spread large.

Her right hand reached up to fiddle with the single braid that dropped down from her left ear.

So much like home, the trackless plains of Arizona in their world of green and rocky climbs. This sunset bore resemblances of those she had seen with her mother. Now it was nothing more than a romantic's dream, the sky of orange merging yet fighting the waves of vanilla.

She wrapped the braid around her index finger before just letting it fall away.

_I've made my decision, I had to do what I did._

Sacrifices had been made.

Her eyes strayed to her car and she reached inside the pocket of her jeans, retrieving her car keys. The lights of the Fiat flashed white before dimming again as her hand rested on the smooth door handle.

She stopped as she felt those tingles of awareness.

A knowing that the men in suits were watching her, their shaded eyes revealing nothing.

Julia did not turn, only sigh to herself as she pulled the door open and sat herself on the cotton support of the seat.

The door closed.

The Mishima's watched and listened. They always watched and listened, eating on scraps of dead flesh. Even in here she felt the invisible buzz of an unseen recorder, draining all blood from the air in its eager search for living meat.

She opened the glove compartment to check.

_I thought I put it there._

A slim, black phone lay amidst the piles of loose paper.

A life line to an old friend who she would call once away from here...

***

_Funny, she's asleep._

Indeed it was funny to Lee Chaolan that a robot could sleep. His gaze flicked to her. Her sleeping face, a face craftsmen could love, was draped by her locks of dark rose. He noted in his gaze that the school uniform still looked rather cumbersome on her body. A black, gingham dress with white t-short, cotton socks and _flat _shoes? Lee shook his head as his gaze turned back to the wide vista in front.

_Heihachi, you simply have no taste or style._

It was expected from an old fart like his father anyway.

Another thing he noted was the flower nestled in her locks.

_She still holds my brother in high regard I see._

He smiled. Yes, Alisa was indeed intriguing. Though this journey... way too slow.

Lee's foot pressed onto the pedal with a mere touch and he heard and felt the engine snarl from within its cave. His eyes lit in motion with that sound, the adrenaline pumping into his veins, thrilling his body with light shivers. That sunset of rose that spanned a vista felt closer-

Two monotone beeps of his handset.

He let out a short sigh as the speed relaxed and then reached to the mobile in its hands free holder, pressing the central button.

Disappointment was replaced with a smile.

"Julia..."

_Excellent._

It indeed was.

***

Asuka pulled open the wooden gate to the Kazama Dojo and stepped onto the garden path. Her footsteps tapped on the dirtied ground.

Every footstep was hollow in those taps of flat clogs.

A greeting for ghosts.

No words were given to those ghosts, only the sound of those steps and the sweet smell of drifting sakura blossoms.

Slam.

The door opened.

Slam!

The door closed.

"Papa?" called Asuka, her voice tinged with the boredom of late-teens.

She kicked off her loose shoes , each one flying off into the corners of the living room. Neither garnered her attention.

"Asuka, you really should be a little more polite," accosted Asuka's father as he hobbled into the room from the side door.

"Sorry, I've just had a bad end to the day."

"Tell me about it later, Asuka but mind your manners as Detective Wulong-san is visiting."

Asuka raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"It's about your cousin," answered the voice of the visitor.

Garbed in blue and green silks of a martial artists outfit, Lei was leaning in the doorway to the room, a cup of steaming ginseng tea in hand. His stance was relaxed, his voice not so.

"I've found the information you and Mr. Kazama requested on Jin Kazama," he continued, his eyes levelling with Asuka's orbs of trepidation.

The moment had come.

***

_"Jin... Jin, wake up."_

_In the darkness, that great darkness, the obsidian eyes of Jin Kazama opened to the world._

_"Where am I?" he muttered._

_He remembered falling... falling for ages._

_Then..._

_Hitting a surface._

_Then..._

_No pain just..._

_Black._

_Now he could feel that same smooth surface beneath his finger tips. His eyes strayed down and they widened and contracted at the same moment._

_He was standing on nothing._

_A lightless void was his floor._

_Yet... he could feel something beneath his feet, a definite solidity so why...?_

_"All questions will be answered in time."_

_That same gentle voice._

_"Who are you?"_

_"Someone once known."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_No reply from the sky of infinite black._

_Jin put his hands to the ground and pulled himself up, the world around him finally becoming clear from just the floor and the sky._

_It was a world of mirrors._

_He staggered around as the soft yet eerie music played into his eardrums again._

_He was reflected in nothing, the mirrors only reflecting their own small shards of light, all encapsulating infinite in a rectangle as one reflected another and another and another..._

_"This is a place of memory, Jin..." _

_The soft voice explained to him in his guarded stares._

_"This is the place where your journey will start."_

**A/N; If you found the humour weird or just plain stupid I apologise, it's just this is the first time I've actually written humour and this will be an experiemental fic for me at least. Yes this will be the start of a Dante's Inferno style journey for Jin. It's going to be something that binds the plot over the next chapters. To you the reader I wish you the best and please rate and review.**

**hplo.**

**Japanese Dictionary;**

**Kohai - pupil**

**Chan - term of endearment.**

**San - mister. **

**Obachan - affectionate term for Uncle or middle-aged man.**

**Kaachan - affectionate term for mother.**

**Papa - affectionate term for father.**


	3. The Second Circle

**A/N; I wanted to clear up a couple of things, firstly that mysterious music that Jin keeps hearing is the Mirror Darkness music from Tekken 2's final boss stage. I incorporated it as as a true thematic element within this part of the story. Secondly I have updated the last two chapters with the Japanese honorifics that are used within this one as to keep continuity, it is just the honorifics and titles, nothing else. Third I have included a dictionary of all the Japanese words used at the end. I hope that helps and I hope you enjoy...**

_Italics - _thoughts, world of the unconscious.

() - brackets used to show the change to narrator

Chapter 3: The Second Circle

"You finally have it?!"

Lei Wulong nodded from the other end of the room to Asuka's fervent question.

"Yes, it required some effort but I have the files out back."

"Well what are we waiting fo-?"

"Asuka," cut in her father in his calm voice, "let's wait for now."

"But-!"

"Asuka," he repeated, raising his left hand in an open palm.

She sighed.

"Yes, father," she replied in a resigned tone.

"We'll look after dinner," continued Mr. Kazama before turning his spectacled gaze upon the supercop, "do you wish to join us Wulong-san?"

Lei bowed a slight bow with fist to palm.

"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Kazama."

***

_"Journey? What do you mean?"_

_"Touch one of the mirrors..."_

_The gentle instruction from this invisible being did not ease his need for answers._

_"Which one?"_

_"Any one..."_

_Jin pulled up the spiritual training gi before taking steps across this darkness. As he approached one mirror, he could only watch as its size started to distort. With every step closer, the mirror grew horizontally like a trick of the light given true form. Jin's eyebrows narrowed as he stood in front of its monolithic form, the surface now no longer a reflection of the eternity but a smooth surface of liquid obsidian._

_It was the literal manifestation of that void he had stared into for so long._

_"...the void looks into you," he muttered to no one._

_Yes, he could feel the mirror's empty gaze sliding into him, looking into that void of his soul and painting his life, his sins on that black canvas. All to be absorbed into nothingness._

_"Jin do not be afraid."_

_The benign voice's chords struck the emotion that he felt in small pin pricks. Dare he look into the abyss?_

_"Touch the surface."_

_An angel's voice yet maybe a devil to a Faustian ear._

_Jin closed his eyes before he took in a long breath and exhaled again. His eyes opened with that toughened auburn, the strength and texture of a firmly rooted oak. He reached a crimson gauntleted hand forward and his finger tips touched the surface._

_A ripple of a liquid surface._

_"What?!"_

_The lightless liquid started to envelope his right arm at speed. He cried as he tried to retract his arm but the liquid responded with a great tug._

_"N-!"_

_His cry was cut off as he was swallowed whole by the void._

***

"Please sit, Wulong-san."

Lei Wulong bowed before he seated himself within the central room of the dojo, a place lit by the lantern of uncaged birds struggling to climb inside. He placed himself upon the black zabuton across this long, rectangular table of black maple from Mr. Kazama and Asuka, an invisible line drawn in engraved brush strokes between host and guest.

"Itadakimasu," intoned all three people.

Silence.

All three were in silence as they ate the meal of cold soba noodles. Looks were exchanged between hosts and guest but no forms of communication were opened.

That was until Asuka, from her position nearest to the door, broke bread with a question,

"Wulong-san..."

"Lei-san is fine," replied Lei as he pushed a piece of negi and two soba noodles between his lips.

"Lei-san..." she corrected in unfamiliar syllables, "papa told me that you knew Jun-sama once..."

"Yeah, I was her partner at one time."

His eyes saw the fervency, the need to know glisten in her eyes, the hunger not satiated for a past she never knew.

"We were entering into the King of Iron Fist Tournament Two ..."

***

_(We were part of the team that had been sent into the Mishima Zaibatsu. We all had our different motives. I was looking for my other partner... and friend. He had been brainwashed by that bastard Kazuya..._

_You think that he's a hero, Asuka? Don't believe what the media says. Kazuya Mishima was evil. What? You still don't believe me ? I'll give you an example. Most businessmen silence their critics by producing results, he silenced them by gunshot. Japanese, Brazillian, American... all dead. Power was everything to him._

_Funniest thing was though, I didn't think that Jun would actually have an affect on that monster. She was beautiful probably even stunning if she had ever pursued a career as a model but that's the sort of person she was. Jun always laughed off the flirts and teases about her looking like a geisha._

_"It's just the way I look," was all she ever said. She was modest about most things, even her abilities, despite being one of the best greatest students this dojo has produced. She was always so calm as well. She even had a gun pointed to her head and she said,_

_"Shoot me."_

_One pull of that trigger and she would have been another stupid martyr but the guy didn't even ask if she believed in god, he just dropped his weapon and stared! Honestly, in that moment I really did think that some invisible, severed hand had redeemed him._

_That was until I put the cuffs on him and he started swearing like a furby on steroids._

_Jun was like that when I was watching from the sidelines at the Iron Fist too. She was graceful in her movements, a real martial arts master...)_

_This was a memory in which Jin Kazama entered into._

_He emerged from that cold eternity into violent warmth, his senses unable to contain this transition from the darkness of the mirror's harmony to this world of violent intent. He blinked and asked through still shaking lips,_

_"Where am I?"_

_His tone was of instant need._

_"The preliminary rounds of the King of Iron Fist Tournament Two, now go through the crowd."_

_He may have asked how he was in there or why but that gentle voice had been clipped in tone, asking not for questions but for him to seek the answers. Jin said nothing as sense came back to him, his feet only pushing forward, down through the steps towards that decescended in circles of violence to the ring in the centre. He reached out with two hands to push two of the spectators out of the way._

_His hands phased straight through._

_Panic was hitched behind those edged features, a violent emotion that was displayed with the widening of eyes and the widening of his mouth with no cry. Covert overtones for vivid undercurrents._

_Within that same second, he retracted his hand._

_He was a ghost. A hollow being where feeling of any kind was just on the edge of consciousness, baiting him from the other side of that void but never allowing full realisation._

_Such was his life._

_The hollow warmth that ran through his body._

_"__**OOH! OOH! OOH!**__"_

_The __**guttural cries**__ of the masses._

_"__**SLAM! SLAM!**__"_

_The __**pulverising **__of feet!_

_All distant._

_Yet as he approached the bottom... he felt as if he became a broken conductor for this anger of the bodies that he passed through._

_Each step..._

_The stamping of feet._

_"__**SLAM! SLAM!**__"_

_The __**screams **__of harlots and whores__**.**_

_"__**OOH! OOH! OOH!**__"_

_That **bilious heat**_e_ that rushes through the body!_

_They became greater and greater within his self. Only a trigger was needed to make that connection._

_"Kaachan,"_

_Jun Kazama in one fell back flip smashed her faceless opponent to the floor, their knees crumbling under them like the erosion of slate by the wind and their body falling into a graceful flop. Jin smelt summer salts, the texture of leaves, even the running of clear water, all so on the brink of the senses, yet the name for his mother was only said through the slight widening of eyes, the upward flick of raven eyebrows and the slight twitches of surprise at each end of his mouth._

_"__**Jun Kazama Wins!!**__"_

_Bang! _

_A single connection is made in red lightning for the tiniest of moments, that flash of nostalgia and bitter loss that he reacts to in one of his few, accustomed ways of shaking fists._

_"__**Kaachan!**__"_

_A single scream that is drowned in this maelstrom._

_The audience screams, "__**MORE! MORE!**__"_

_Jin screams, "__**No more! No more!**__"_

_Only for Kaachan._

_This wind though boils his emotions in blood as he becomes another lost conductor, another one screaming as all commingle into a circle wind that scatters this infectious current too and fro, its screeches and roars akin to a Biblical daemon slashing its rusted claws into the flesh of its androgynous lover._

_"Go after her."_

_That voice released Jin from the shackles of saints and sinners._

_All emotion became pure clarity, a liquid silver running in his bloodstream._

_His feet pushed him forward as his eyes focused on her._

_Kaachan..._

_The liquid silver combusted._

_"__**Kaachan!**__"_

_She did not hear as she headed for the double-doored exit to the stadium._

_He ran though in pursuit of her, driven by emotions that had beaten three previous generations of Mishima._

_Jun's Kazama's white, cotton top disappeared through the opening._

_Jin's shaking hands hit the swinging door ._

_Slam._

_Huh?!_

_No Jun._

_Only a void of endless white light._

_He stood there, looking in with his widened eyes._

_"Go through..."_

_The voice coaxed him again, the screams of the audience grew shrill as the next two fighters entered the square ring._

_Was it his-?_

_"Argh!"_

_A sudden push from invisible hands tripped Jin through the door..._

_(...At least that was how I remember it.)_

_***_

_"_Is that all you remember of Jun-sama?" asked Asuka with a raised eyebrow.

Lei shook his head from his cross-legged position.

"It was something that always stuck out from memory for me, that's all."

"So what happened afterwards?"

"I'll tell you after this meal," he replied, laying his chopsticks to the side of his dish.

"What? Why not now?!"

"Because it is best if Jun explains the rest."

The enigmatic reply cut Asuka's indignation in two. She leant back in her zabuton, letting out a frustrated, growling sigh. Lei and Mr. Kazama said nothing as they poured their soba-yu from the ceramic bottles into the small cups of tsuyu. They raised them up to their lips, each exchanging a silent glance.

_To those we have lost and to the memories that remain._

They tipped the cups back and downed the liquid in one gulp.

***

_Where am I?_

_That question was becoming something of a meaningless habit as his obsidian eyes surveyed the all encompassing light._

_"We are in a period of transition," answered the voice to that meaningless question._

_Jin tilted his head in search of that voice._

_"From what to what?"_

_"From one memory to the next."_

_He raised an eyebrow._

_"These aren't my memories though."_

_"Ever heard of collective unconsciousness?"_

_Jin replied with a short nod._

_"The unconscious psychic bond that unites us all, I've heard of it."_

_"Many things are shared through the collective unconscious, one of which is memories. Memories are passed on genetic levels through this bond, from parent to child, from sibling to sibling and so on however people can also connect through emotional bonds."_

_Jin raised one dark eyebrow to this voice._

_"Friend, lover and enemy are all connected because of that emotional bond, their interchange of experiences on a subconscious level as strong as those on a genetic level. That is how you have seen what you have seen so far and what you shall continue see."_

_He nodded as he started to take another step forward._

_"Remember, Jin," interrupted the voice, "these memories are merely hollow illusions."_

_"I know."_

_A reply that he made as he continued walking, his feet padding on smooth nothingness while his gaze remained straight. The voice rang in his ears like the thoughts that perturbed him._

_"They are not gateways to the past."_

_I know._

_"Nothing you do within them will have any affect."_

_I know._

_"What's done is done."_

He knew.

_The oppressive, once lingering thought of a snake had swallowed the egg as it continually tried to devour its own tail. The inspired hope of connecting with that time of Feeling, with Kaachan again was extinguished._

_Mind you, when was that new?_

_"Are you okay?"_

_"I'm fine," he replied, his feet pounding onwards._

_***_

Asuka's gaze travelled up to the shimenawa, six white paper zigzags, the shape of the shides hanging from the braid of rope overhead.

_Why keep the information in the Kamidana?_

"Have you both washed your hands thoroughly?" asked Mr. Kazama, his voice edged with deep demand.

"Yes," came the dual reply, each as serious as the other.

With his right hand, Mr. Kazama drew back the door as he entered into this small shrine first. The two visitors followed in step as they entered, each ones eyes straying to the shrine. It was a simple thing that, a small wooden cabinet guarded in its silent procession by two evergreen Sakaki plants in their vases and the braid of shimenawa hung over the little alcove, its three shide the simplistic banner for this wooden royalty.

The three visitors to the shrine of the one-time Kazama patriarch bowed in line, the silence their acknowledgement.

"So can I now have a look?" asked Asuka, turning her head to Lei.

"Asuka."

Her gaze flicked back to see him placing his index finger over his lips.

"Sorry."

She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder as she finished her whispered reply.

"The information is on the table," indicated Lei to her constant twisting gaze between the two men.

Her eyes settled on the large, blue folder resting on the table in the corner of this shrine.

_Is that it?_

Her footsteps quickened in pace as she approached the table.

_Jun Kazama._

The words were written in thin, black pen on the folder's lid. She knelt down, her body shaking with long, long trepidation.

_I've always wanted to know..._

She lifted the lid.

Photographs, records, birth certificate.

_Fuck..._

Her fingers pried over the sheer wealth information within this folder, the specifics of a time that had been obscured with the sealing within a frosted bell-jar.

_Kazama Jun's Journal...?_

Asuka smiled as her fingers opened the book cover, relishing the feel of rough paper and thin ink before she started cycling through pages.

_Where is it?_

Her fingers flicked pages past, searching for thoughts.

_Ah here it is...._

The page that would give answers to locks of sound.

The tingle of that close warmth, that comforting cage bound her in enrapture to the words as page and skin were enveloped in orange light...

***

_Ah..._

_I always knew this day would come..._

_Kazuya had called me to his office today after my first match...._

_A pair of auburn eyes watched her from the shadows as she walked down that vast red carpet to the double, oak doors at the end._

_"This is just a memory, Jin."_

_He paid little credence to the words as the song of mirrors played into his ears, the slightest hint of a breeze cupping his bangs. He moved from the shadows in the wake of his mother's formal amble, keeping his gaze straight ahead._

_"Jun Kazama?"_

_Jun nodded in response to the sultry, American voice._

_"Kazuya's been waiting for you," announced another American, deep and grinding in its vocals. _

_Jin tilted his head around his mother's back to see._

_Bruce Irvin and... Anna Williams?_

_One of the Williams sisters._

_His gaze dropped and reasserted._

_Does she know that her sister is dead?_

_He hoped she did, God or whatever entity presided over that Hell, he hoped that she didn't have to suffer in bliss, she __**must **__grieve._

_"Miss Kazama I am going to have to give you a full body search."_

_Anna snorted._

_"What?!" _

_"You'll do anything to get your hands on a pair of boobs."_

_A dusting of crimson tinged Jun's pale cheeks._

_Jin's gloved hands creaked to his clench._

_"Hmph, whatever."_

_The kickboxer's gloved hands continued to press and prod over Jun's black trousers. Jin's knuckles clenched with every touch._

_"She's clean," confirmed Bruce as he finished._

_Jun lowered her arms, letting out a great, inward sigh._

_"Lee will see you in."_

_Jun nodded to Anna's formalised statement._

_"Isn't that Mr. Chaolan?"_

_"I'll call him whatever the hell I want, Mr. Irvine."_

_Jin exhaled a growling breath._

_"Those two really are quite irritating," agreed the voice._

_He said nothing as the left-hand door was opened in a long creak and the form of a truly youthful Lee Chaolan stepped through._

_"Mishima-sama will see you now."_

_Jun nodded again before walking through the open door._

_In the footsteps of his mother, Jin walked into the place of silk drapes, red carpets, chandeliers of dim light and encroaching shadows. It was the heart of a man on the precipice of that chasm which haunts us all._

_The man in question gazed up from his camphor desk._

_"Ah, Kazama Jun, I presume?"_

_Jin's eyebrows sunk again._

_Stating the obvious was a fool's trick but the Devil plays merry hell with the tricks of the idiot, levelling entire rooms into silent terrors._

_Jun Kazama though was no fool or idiot._

_She returned his marbled gaze, hands crossed on her waist._

_Jin could only watch from the back of the office at this silent interrogation. He ground his top teeth over his bottom in invisible movements of his top jaw, each movement becoming more violent._

_How dare that bastard treat his mother like this?!_

_How dare he treat anyone like this?!_

_If only he was solid, he would..._

_His right fist shook._

_Then unclenched._

_A half smirk formed._

_He had already killed Kazuya._

_A small moment of hollow satisfaction._

_The moment ended as the ghost of his father spoke,_

_"Sit."_

_Jun sat._

_Kazuya smirked as he leant back into his chair, his arms folded._

_She blinked._

_…_

_The slightest gust of wind played within the notes of music brushed past..._

_And then..._

_Somewhere, in mind or in matter, a volume nob was twisted within Jin's mind, tuning him into the past reflections of another._

_Kaachan?_

_(...I remember when I was sitting in that place of darkness, Kazuya would just stare at me. I would look back and say nothing. It was a habit I'd practised over my lifetime when at the table with Ojiisan. I was never clear about how long I spent in that chair, though Chaolan-san did inform me that it was around half an hour, but it was Kazuya who finally spoke._

_"You are wondering why I have invited you here?"_

_I nodded._

_"I am aware that you are here because of a certain investigation into my 'handling' of animals."_

_Kazuya knew. That in of itself was no surprise. However I did not sense any implicit or explicit threat in his voice, it was filled with that laconic sarcasm that he always expressed._

_He rose from that throne of his, his gaze never leaving me and walked over to the drapes. Pulling them back with a far-flung swish of his arms, revealed a midnight landscape. To my vision, the landscape was wondrous yet horrifying in its soulless symmetry. This vision of steel and glass, of modernisation spread as far as the vast windows allowed._

_This was Kazuya's vision for the world._

_I was just the cockroach in his path._

_He was always a man of dramatic metaphors and villainous clichés. He crossed his arms in front of him before he spoke to his reflection._

_"I wish for you to the leave the tournament."_

_Again I there was no threat just a slight edge of... fear?_

_"Why?"_

_I asked that question, hoping to push some illusory advantage but all he did was turn and stare at me. There was a hard edge to those eyes, a shade of dark royalty to his features as he spoke again._

_"You should ask yourself that question, why do you stay here?"_

_"Because you haven't told me to leave."_

_Kazuya tossed his head back and bellowed his laugh. I thought that at the time it was mocking and cruel. Yes it was a cruel, hollow laugh yet now I see that it was directed at no one, just himself...)_

_Jin crossed his arms and closed his eyes for the briefest of moments before they opened again..._

_("That is the biggest amount of bull crap I've heard for a very long time. If I told you to leave you would not leave."_

_"Would I?"_

_"You are too committed, too... intrigued."_

_I remember feeling my insides burn because Kazuya in all his bluntness was speaking personal truths. It burnt but I did not deny. Though I did ask myself "why should I be interested in this... demon?" At the time I did not know why though I sensed that fear again in his words. It was a fear connected with a dark corona of energy. Every time I sensed it I shuddered, it was like touching the dark side of the moon. Thank the kami I did not know its name otherwise I would have run out of that room..._

_Jin's gaze saw his mother fidgeting with her hands as he heard the words in his mind._

_I can't blame her, even she had her limits..._

_...I remember though that commingled within the fear was an eagerness in his words. It was a small, crystal egg, something that was yet to be born as if it had no mother, only shut out in the sleet and rain. Kazuya and eager were not two concepts I will never be able to ever connect but in that moment as he paced up and down in the dim light, there was a confidence about his stride, a crimson glint in his left eye and a twitch to that cruel smirk._

_"Well, Kazama Jun, if you are intrigued enough, perhaps I can teach you the meaning of fear over dinner maybe?"_

_"Excuse me?"_

_Shock was my first reaction. How could he have asked anyone out for a date with a line like that? At first I wanted to turn down his offer as I knew Kazuya could very well "teach the meaning of fear," to me. However interest, that sense of a connection, can overcome any lingering doubt. That is what I learned that day...)_

_"Yes, I will accept."_

_Jin shook his head._

_"Why are you so disappointed?"_

_"This is how it all started, there was no choice after this."_

_"Who knew that such a cheesy line could have initiated such an illicit affair?"_

_The brush of wind on his cheek became an instant furore, tearing every paper illusion away from him, the images of his mother and father mere shreds in eternity. His father's image clung on for the longest before it was torn into eternity. _

_All was black._

_Jin stood there as the wind drained into a whistle of its dark harmony again._

_His eyes blinked at sights that had now become commonplace..._

_That event was the start of an downward spiral. The end result was the death of Kazuya..._

_Creak._

_A door with no handle opened to white light._

_No voice had to utter any instruction._

_He simply walked forward..._

_***_

"Died?!"

"Asuka!"

"Sorry."

"Died?" she whispered in repeat to the detective and her rebuking father.

Lei nodded.

"Yes, he did die," replied Lei, "he was thrown into a volcano by Heihachi Mishima."

Asuka's mouth fell open.

"But how did he-?"

"I don't know. Twenty years later he just reappeared. I launched an investigation into his re-emergence and I got as far as something to do with G-Corporation but they simply stopped it dead in its tracks with their lawyers."

Asuka raised an eyebrow as Lei held up his hands.

"They threatened the entire department with legal charges that would have destroyed us."

She exhaled a sharp sigh.

"Heh, it's ironic," continued the cross-legged detective with an ironic smirk.

"What is?"

"Jin Kazama and Kazuya Mishima, both wanted to take over their world and both fell victim to their own unresolved sins; power, greed and Heihachi Mishima."

Asuka smirked but her gaze was wavering.

_Who was Mishima Kazuya?_

_Was he a hero or a villain?_

_What the hell was that "energy?"_

Her eyes turned back to the journal as in the orange candle light, she flicked through the book, ever fervent to find an ending just after the beginning.

_Aha! Jun-sama's last entry..._

***

_Jin's footsteps padded through the door and the white light greeted him with its smells of fresh salt. He blinked once on the other side as this calm breeze cleared his vision._

_I'm on a boat._

_He walked forward, feeling that slight breeze continually play with his bangs, enticing him onwards. _

_The slight blow of the wind..._

_The cry of lone seagulls..._

_The washing of calm waves..._

_The only sounds on this ferry to nowhere. A scene of tranquillity captured in the colours of graphite, everything shaded and detailed, everything frozen and alone._

_All except one._

_Jin's gaze turned to his left to see that distant figure of his mother. He pushed himself into a jog to bridge that distance._

_Tap...tap...tap..._

_The hitting of steps upon metal._

_Tap...tap...tap..._

_Forever cyclical._

_Tap...tap...tap..._

_It had ended, I knew it..._

_His mother's voice._

_Jin's gaze fell upon her in the flows and waves of the white dress of woven silk she wore. The wind blew the tresses and bangs of her hair, her eyes closed and lips pursed, she was the rhythm of this world._

_Kaachan... she looks... sad._

_He stood there in silence, just watching her._

_It was the way the world worked for them._

_When Kaachan was sad, she sat in silence._

_So would he._

_They would sit and stare and smile until it was all better._

_It was the way the world had worked for them._

_Jin stood and listened..._

_(Kazuya was dead._

_I felt it. There was nothing left to be said to anyone. I couldn't phone home. Ojiisan left a message on my answering machine._

_"I know."_

_How he knew I did not know but he stated them with the intent of execution. I was guillotined from my ties to the family and all my students, even to my little brother. Ojiisan asked me to call him back that day but I never did. I'm a coward, yes, I'm a little girl who is cowering under the table from the angry tirades. I will always be that but I will never regret what I did. The times I shared Kazuya's bed, those winds will fade in dying dreams yet those winds are the reason for our connection. That is something I will never forget. It's funny how the winds blow...)_

_Jin's gaze descended to her hand on her own abdomen._

_Is that...?_

_(...My child, Kazuya's child has become the bane of both families. I cannot allow it to grow up, hated and reviled. I just hope that the world is kinder to this child that it was to it's father, I wish for my child to never bear the legacy of hatred.)_

***

Asuka pulled herself to her feet as the last sentence receded into memory. She let out a long breath.

_Relax..._

"Asuka, what's wrong?"

She whirled around to her father.

"**I'll**..."

_Not now._

_Not in this place._

Calm was the manner of the dojo. Calm and respect for the seniors both the living and the deceased.

"Asuka?"

"I'm fine!" she cried with the nails digging into her palms.

She stomped past her father.

"Asuka!"

Slam!

_She needs the time alone._

He rubbed his forehead and sighed .

_She still needs to improve her manners._

What she needed was to beat the shit out of something! Her feet stomped down the corridor.

_Jun-sama was abandoned by her own family!_

Abandoned.

Cut off.

With an unborn child.

"Ojii-teme..."

The first on a long line of insults she wanted to shout at that old bastard. Yeah, she loved tradition. She was proud of the name Kazama, she wanted to uphold it in gold light but what her grandfather did... there was a line, there was **always **a line. He hadn't just crossed it, he had torn it in two.

_I wish could have beaten the crap out of him for what he did!_

A punch bag would have to suffice.

_Jun-sama._

_(I will never regret...)_

_She's no coward._

_(I wish for my child to never bear the legacy of hatred.)_

Her eyebrows were pulled into a deeper furrow at the rising torrents.

_Kazama Jin, you bastard..._

There was a need for two punch bags tonight.

***

_Jin listened to the last words fade._

_"Why did you show me this?"_

_His question was spat, a need for an answer._

_"You were born in sin, Jin but that sin as an evil is an illusory concept."_

_Sin's evil, an illusory concept?_

_Hmph, ridiculous. Sin was the fuel of the world's heart of darkness._

_He was born in sin, the truth to those words of illusion._

_Each word was this reality's meaning. The wind in its three note siren call begged for the water to be drunk. Bliss is in the taste of salt as the throat becomes a dessert and the tides leap up providing "more! More!" until the wind returns and tears the flesh of feeling from the body, leaving only the taste of the world on the tongue._

_Bitter._

_This place was a bitter illusion, a moment of peace that deludes._

_(...I just hope that the world is kinder to this child that it was to it's father, I wish for my child to never bear the legacy of hatred...)_

_Idealisms that he once believed in, worshipped in. He wanted to be that man that his dear, sweet Kaachan so dreamed of._

_Jin now knew that was a dead dream._

_Bitterness._

_That is reality._

_Past, present and future._

_"Let's go," he muttered_.

_I am born in sin and I will walk this damned road until the end. _

**A/N; Dictionary;**

**Itadakimasu - we humbly recieve**

**Ojiisan - old man/grandfather**

**Papa - affectionate term for father.**

**Kaachan - affectionate term for mother.**

**-sama - honorific of deep respect.**

**-teme - insult.**

**Kamidana - shrine area of the dojo.**

**Shimenawa - Rope braid that marks the boundary between normal and sacred places such as the Kamidana.**

**Shide - a zizzag shaped, paper streamer.**

**Soba - simple noodle dish.**

**Neji - Japanese leek.**

**Tsuyu - soya based dip.**

**Nori - seaweed.**

**Soba-yu - the water used to boil the soba noodles in.**

**Zabuton - type of flat chair/cushion used within a japanese household.**

**-One last thing before I go, heat isn't spelt wrong, I added the 'e' onto the end for pronounciation reasons, to resemble the word "hate." Hopefully this update is good enough, I'm not sure though but hey. Two thanks, one to Razer Athane for the advice on Jin's character and with previous chapters and two for SeungSeiRan for beta-reading this chapter. As for when the next chapter is out, hopefully in two weeks time. I'm trying to keep a regular update schedule so the chapters maybe a bit slow in coming out but at the end of the day I want to get this finished. I wish you, the reader, the very best.**

**Hplo.**


	4. Greed and Avarice Canto I

**A/N; This chapter has been something of a problem child. I apologise for the lateness of this chapter but this was a very difficult one to get right.**

**Japanese translations:**

**Tousan - Father**

**-san - Mr/Mrs.**

**-sama - term of respect.**

**Swedish translations:**

**Fan - Fuck**

**Shik - Shit**

Chapter 4; Greed and Avarice Canto I

11:00pm.

En route to the drop off point.

_Heh almost sounds like a movie opening._

Except they were not going on some secret mission, nor where any of them off to save the world. For Lars Alexandersson and his comrades this mission was completely and utterly pointless.

_Damn headaches._

In the dark Lars flipped a pouch on his belt and withdrew a small, white tub of aspirin. As he flipped open, he looked at the contents.

_You know life's a bitch when the high point of your day is taking pills._

High points in foul tasting, capsule form. Lars popped one into his mouth and swallowed.

_Possibly a day of my life wasted..._

A day of his life wasted, a day that could have been spent fighting for something worthwhile not here in this wilderness. Lars was a man of his job, he loved it and breathed it but why did he take this mission?

_Why?..._

***

_(…Beep! Beep!_

_"...Oh... what now?"_

_Lars Alexandersson, Tekken Force hero, groped around in the wrong area for the alarm clock, his form lying face down and naked upon the floor._

_Beep! Beep!_

_Oh shut up._

_Beep! Be-__**crack!**_

_Lars smirked, his hooded death glare now risen to the crumpled wreck where his fist had smote._

_"Lars...?"_

_His right hand grasped at the bed sheet as he staggered to his feet, his gaze meeting the lowered eyes of his girlfriend._

_"Hey," he replied, the smirk becoming a smile._

_"What time is it?" Alisa asked in her voice of drowsiness._

_Lars scratched the back of his hair._

_"I smashed the alarm clock."_

_"Oh... oh well, I may have Tousan see if he can install one in me to prevent that."_

_"Alisa, you already have enough machinery in you," he soothed, pinching the bridge of his nose and blinking to refocus his sight, "and besides you're not a machine anyway, you're human."_

_Her ever present smile widened._

_"Lars."_

_He turned his head back._

_"Are you planning to have your breakfast naked?"_

_He laughed a soft laugh and shrugged._

_"Why not?" he replied before walking through the door…)_

***

_No music…_

_That was the first sense to greet Jin to his awakening._

_Where am I?_

_His gaze locked to the vaulted ceiling as his touch felt the comfort of silk beneath his body._

_Huh?_

_His arms and legs were moving, pulling him up from this bed yet it was not by his own will!_

_What the hell is going on?!_

_His gaze cut the train of thought in two as his eyes set upon the room. It was a child's dream room, gigantic posters of Kamen Rider and Super Sentai hung high on the walls, collosi of a child's ideologies while life-size statues and small toys jostled for affection._

_Jin groaned within._

_Oh please no..._

_He felt these limbs pull him off the bed and a further inward groan escaped at his small vantage point. _

_I'm in a body of a child, terrific._

_Tap, tap._

_A child trapped in a veil of claws that descended over this room in long shadows, the tap of rain against the single window a constant in the silence._

_Tap tap._

_From this underlying monotony of emotion, Jin felt a sudden shock as the gaze turned to a simple toy, a cup and ball._

_I'm happy?_

_"No Jin, it is merely the feelings of this child."_

_Elaborate._

_"You will see and feel everything this child will experience."_

_Immaturity, the last thing I need._

_"I thought you of all people would appreciate the experience."_

_True emotion is not understood by those so young._

_"Yet you wish to connect back to that time? Is that not a paradox?"_

_It is a foolish wish..._

_"...that you still dream of..."_

_It is dream, it will never come to pass._

_"Are you so sure?"_

_I will always be._

_Click._

_The twist of a brass-handle as the door opened. Jin felt this happiness reach an abrupt end, the boy tossing the toy aside and standing rigid as the figure of a man in a black suit and shades walked in._

_"Tousan wishes to see you in the breakfast hall."_

_The gaze of the boy dipped in a short nod._

_"He says he wants you washed and change within five minutes, Kazuya-sama."_

_Kazuya... oh no._

_***_

_(__"So you're going to be seeing Mishima Heihachi-san today?"_

_Lars nodded as Alisa as her fingers worked upon his blue tie._

_"You seem unhappy," she commented, her eyes not gazing up to his face._

_"There are only two things I hate in life; the Mishima Family and suits."_

_"Which do you hate more?" _

_"Suits."_

_"You have to wear it over your armour though…" she continued._

_He nodded._

_"I know, until the time comes when walking down the street in Tekken gear does not get me shot at."_

_"You refer to a day after the press conference?"_

_"Unfortunately yes."_

_Her fingers pulled the tie through the last loop into a full Windsor and pulled the tie up to his-_

_"Ack!"_

_"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"_

_Two violent coughs escaped from Lars throat as his hands loosened the noose around his neck, his face returning to a normal colour._

_"I'm-"_

_Lars raised a placating left hand._

_"Don't... worry... about... it."_

_Her hands retreated to her chest as she exhaled a breath._

_"Alisa, just please watch your strength in future," he continued._

_"Yes, I will," she replied with a resolute edge._

_He smiled as he slipped the suit coat on over his arms and turned to the mirror._

_"I look like a robot."_

_To him, the man that would always stand tall, his will was being sapped by the blue pinstripe as it crushed him to rigidity, the tie a chain collar that begged for a new master to reach for. Alisa walked next to him, her head cocked to the right as she gazed at their reflection._

_"No__, you look more human to me," she replied turning her head to him with a widened smile._

_Lars returned with a warm smile of his own._

_"How's school been for you?" he asked as he tied up the buttons on his jacket._

_"It's been... good. We have a new student attending soon."_

_"Oh?"_

_"Her name is Lilli Rochefort."_

_"Lilli Rochefort? The daughter of the owner of Rochefort Enterprises?"_

_Alisa nodded._

_"She was beaten in the King of Iron Fist Tournament 6 by Asuka-san."_

_"She also goes to your school as well, doesn't she?"_

_She nodded again._

_Someone is going to get hurt. Badly._

_He chuckled before it faded in the shakes of his head. _

_"I still don't know why Geppetto sent you to that school in Osaka, especially one owned by the Mishima Zaibatsu."_

_"Tousan said I needed 'life experience."_

_His free right hand cupped her cheek._

_"All that matters is that you're contented."_

_His gaze turned downwards to the school uniform she was wearing._

_She still makes me feel like a paedophile sometimes..._

_Lars sighed._

_"What's wrong?" Alisa asked._

_"Nothing," he replied, "just have a good day."_

_She planted a quick and rather surprising kiss on Lars' forehead._

_"You too. Stay safe."_

_He smirked._

_"I will, mum," he replied as he turned to open the front door, "but I'm still not having lamb for dinner."_

_"I know," replied Alisa with a nod...)_

***

_Jin's gaze settled as his unwitting host sat at this table. The entire table in its extreme length was completely bare of any substance, the silence the only meal for the two occupants. Neither made eye contact, neither talked, all was waiting._

_He's here._

_Upon his throne, a more youthful Heihachi sat._

_His grandfather, one of the few people in the world able to draw emotions from him._

_Hate, rage and... fear._

_Jin shook his metaphorical head._

_He is just an illusion, a memory, that is all._

_An illusion that burst into life._

_The two oak doors were cast open as butlers in black dress hurried forward balancing morsels of giants upon silver platters. The scents and sights of fresh bacon, fried ostrich eggs and all manner of other exotica lit the hall with ribbons of life, the inanimate gargoyles dancing on their perches and the pillars reverberated with opera._

_Clap! Clap! Clap!_

_"Quickly! Quickly! Quickly!"_

_The head butler clapped his leather hands for the servants to continue serving the dishes until the last one was placed and the line of butlers retreated, the head butler with his long, handlebar moustache bowed deep and true signalling the end to this first overture._

_All was silence again._

_Sickening__..._

_"Kazuya's happy, Jin, that's all."_

_I didn't think he was this childish when he __was young._

_"All people are Jin, even you recognise these emotions."_

_Maybe... at one time.... _

_As Kazuya wolfed down the food in front of him though, he kept seeing the careful glances to a stern faced Heihachi._

_Was he__ scared of him?_

_That just doesn't make any sense._

_Yet Jin could sense that a cold, rotting skeleton lay beneath the glazed skin of joy. The boy was trying to drown himself in this food, in this false feeling._

_But why on earth would Kazuya do something like that for Heihachi?_

_Why?_

_*** _

(..._Why?_

_Years later and that same question was asked in the same place._

_Why I am here?_

_Sitting in full, uncovered armour, Lars could only massage his forehead as the auditor stepped up to the pedestal._

_"Pay attention, Lars," hissed Tougou next to him with a jab in the guts._

_"We already know all of this."_

_"It's a good recap and besides its your job as leader to listen, not act like some spoiled teenager."_

_Lars __shook his head ever so slightly._

_Maybe it's not the briefing but the shik on the throne..._

_The "shik" was one of many expletives that Lars used to describe the man upon the throne. Even after twenty years, Heihachi Mishima proved that he could still fill a tiger jacket and suit without effort. Lars watched as Heihachi scanned all the soldiers in the room in silence._

_He thinks our unit is weak._

_His right fist clenched, his headache spiked yet oppressed._

_The old man caught sight of his gaze and lock onto him. A wry smirk spread across Heihachi's face as he saw the boy hold his gaze with narrowed eyes. Three seconds pass before Lars turned his attention back to the droning auditor._

_The boy has spirit, more than Kazuya did._

_He narrowed his eyes._

_Jin was the same._

_"Now here we have a hologram map of Honshu Island..."_

_All eyes turned to the auditor. Within his hand he pressed a button on an object the size and shape of a pen. The silver ring on the floor illuminated the gothic hall as a map of Honshu island._

_"G Corporation will enter by Hercules, their troops will be dropped off near Shin-Nanyo where they will depart for the oil refinery."_

_"Yeah we're going to kick some ass."_

_"Woo-hoo!"_

_Lars exhaled a short, exasperated sigh._

_Why did G Corporation have to get involved?_

_"Cheer up Lars, they're not going to be an impediment," whispered Tougou._

_"Our unit is enough to handle a situation like this. We don't need these cowboys..."_

_Lars' words were of lighter fuel to oil._

_"What did you say?" _

_"You callin' us amateurs?!"_

_"Quiet!"_

_"Yes, sir!"_

_The two bolted down into their seats at the barked order. The source of the order turned on Lars._

_"Although I do wanna' know, were you calling us amateurs?"_

_I don't have to listen to this._

_"Are you calling the people I've drilled and put through shit a bunch of amateurs?!" snarled the voice._

_"I apologise," replied Lars without looking back._

_"No, that ain't good enough, kid," snarled the attacker, "mind you its not like your soldiers are any better. All a bunch of traitors from what I heard."_

_Lars whirled to his feet, his eyes smouldering._

_Somebody else beat him to the mark._

_"You calling us a bunch of traitors? That's a rich come from a one time hitman!"_

_"That's enough, Daniel!" shouted Tougou._

_**Crack.**_

_The impact of thunder rolling upon waves tore through the room, a single lightning bolt within the pouring rain off in the distance. Heihachi rested his fist back upon the arms of the throne._

_Every gaze was drawn back to him._

_He surveyed every single subject with a gaze of imperious indignation and anger as he spoke again._

_"I see that none of you have any recollection of manners, especially you Bruce-san. The argument was amusing but you __**will**__ sit yourselves back in your seats."_

_Heihachi saw the whelp in his blue jeans and black tank top walk forward, his arms held wide._

_"Forgive me if my manners are lacking but I only answer to one boss," stated Bruce in reply._

_A sneer curved Heihachi's upper left lip._

_"The little girl has you on a chain and leash to her ideals already?"_

_Bruce shook his head._

_"Leo pays well."_

_"Hmph, we'll see about that. Regardless we having a briefing to finish so __**sit."**_

_Bruce snorted as he dropped back onto his chair._

_"Ahem, thank you everyone," announced the auditor, "now if I may continue..."_

_Lars settled his aching head back as the auditor continued to bore holes with words._

_"...the other troops will enter..."_

_"At twelve hundred hours..."_

_All sentences were fragmented to his ears as he tried to listen._

_"Lars, you... okay?"_

_He nodded to Tougou's question. His comrade shook his head._

_"It's those headaches, you need to see a doctor about them."_

_"I already did."_

_"And?"_

_"They said they couldn't find anything wrong."_

_Tougou raised his right eyebrow. _

_"Let's just leave it." replied Lars._

_Tougou nodded as he leaned back into his seat._

_"...the mission objectives are as follows:_

_Meet at the designated points._

_Penetrate the enemy's defences._

_Neutralise the enemy._

_Capture the oil refinery."_

_He makes it sound so damn easy..._

_"I would like to add one thing..."_

_"Mishima-sama?"_

_The old martial artist rose from his seat and surveyed the room._

_"Let me make this clear to you, you are protecting my interests when you go on this mission. If either one of your institutions causes large scale damage to my facility then I will hold you responsible and reimburse myself from your coffers."_

_I should have known._

_"What the hell-?!"_

_"You kidding me...!"_

_"__**Be quiet!**__" shouted Tougou and Bruce in unison._

_Lars had pulled himself to his feet as the silence descended._

_"This is combat, Heihachi, people die in combat, property is destroyed in combat. That's reality!"_

_The old man's gaze descended upon him again, his eyes blazing at his kin's thorough disrespect._

_"There is no other option, boy! You will do as you're told or I will take every last penny from your pocket money, is that understood?!"_

_"Clearly."_

_"You are all dismissed," announced the auditor._

_The clank of boots and the deep grumblings of the soldiers summarised Lars mood as he left with the group, commingled in its misery._

_Damn him..._

_The headache was pounding an obsidian spike into his brain, he wanted... __he wanted to punch a hole through that old man's head! None more so than this time, dropping this weight of black gold upon him. He stopped._

_In fact..._

_No._

_I've got a job to do._

_The headache eased its beat as he walked out of the hall...)_

***

_"Hurry, hurry, Kazuya-sama!"_

_Jin felt the tightening of yet more buttons on this suit as Kazuya hurried on his little legs after the female servant._

_"Kazuya-sama!"_

_A loving hand found Kazuya's with its tender grip._

_"We don't want to be late for tousan do we, Kazuya-sama? C'mon."_

_To Jin it was a rush of affection from Kazuya and footsteps as he was hurried out into the rain by this servant._

_Damn it's cold!_

_Even he, a man of hollow ice, could not deride that this body felt the attack of dark sleet. He could feel the penetrating needles stabbing deep, all the warmth of nourishment decomposing under the attack._

_"Kazuya-sama, let's get in the car."_

_Jin looked up to see that the female servant had opened a black umbrella, shielding him from the rain. He felt the muscles of Kazuya's mouth upturn into a small smile in response, so filled with gratitude before he climbed into the cavernous space of the limousine._

_"You took your time, boy."_

_A__ll that Kazuya could muster was a timid glance at his father and his entourage of Yakuza._

_"Well have you anything to say?" demanded Heihachi._

_Kazuya shook his head._

_"Then sit."_

_The small boy set his rigid form upon the hard leather seat, his hands fidgeting for the seatbelt._

_Pitiful._

_"What is?"_

_I expected Kazuya to put up far more of a fight._

_"He is just a child, Jin."_

_He is still Kazuya._

_"Yes he is still Kazuya but he is also still a child and children like every other beast upon this Earth feel fear, you included."_

_…_

_"Kazuya-sama, let me help you with that belt."_

_The little boy flashed a small smile to the female servant's face, such a young face framed in her long, ebony locks._

_"It's rather sweet isn't it?" questioned the voice again._

_No; nauseating._

_"Don't coddle him, June," groused Heihachi, "he is my son, he is supposed to be strong."_

_"Yes, Mishima-sama," replied June, bowing her head._

_She sat down next to Kazuya in silence as the engine rumbled into life. The young boy's gaze turned to the shades of monochrome outside. Jin shared the gaze, his consciousness resigned with his dark brooding._

_Kazuya feeling fear... it makes some sense..._

_The concession left a bitter taste though._

_Heihachi's behaviour... he's different to the way he used to treat me._

_It was hard to reconcile two images of this father-figure. So confusing in its swirl of raindrops and hale, each one hitting hollow buildings, each one melting in monochromatic globs into mires of bleakness. The world passed to Kazuya's and Jin's eyes as the small boy's eyelids veiled over into black..._

_(…"Boy."_

_What?_

_"Boy!"_

_The harsh bark of Heihachi shocked Jin's senses from slumber._

_What's happening?!_

_His panicked thought was shown in the face of these new surroundings. The traditional white screens of the Mishima Estate encased these new surroundings, the only constant the tap...tap...tap of the rain..._

_"Do not fall asleep in the middle of breakfast, boy!"_

_"Yes, ojiisan."_

_It is my own voice..._

_Yet he had never willed to say those words, they were words once spoken. The dishes laid out on the table were foods once eaten..._

_"Jin, eat!" he commanded._

_"Yes, ojiisan."_

_...And Heihachi was a man he had once called Ojiisan. Once._

_"Remember to eat if you wish to become strong enough."_

_The younger Jin obeyed as he started to quicken in his pace of the food._

_He must become stronger._

_He had to become stronger._

_Once._

_To Jin, he could not have seen a greater fool in the entire universe. This want, this need would be filled by the cold ejaculation of a pistol barrel. The rising of his grandfather caught the younger Jin's attention._

_"I expect you back by 5:00 sharp and by the time I get back from the meeting with Doctor Abel I want to see you working on your homework. I sent you to my school and I expect the work to be done, not for you to be lounging around in that pathetic arcade."_

_"Yes, ojiisan."_

_Heihachi's gaze lingered upon the boy,_

_"What is it you wish to ask?"_

_"__I...I wanted to know what you are doing at the meeting today."_

_Jin internally groaned at that comment._

_Heihachi's eyelids lowered._

_"I am going to be seeing Dr. Abel about his advances in gene therapy. Now finish your meal."_

_"Yes, ojiisan."_

_He turned on his clogs leaving Jin's younger self alone...)_

_"Kazuya-sama!!"_

_The boy's eyes blinked twice before opening to June's words._

_"Wha-?"_

_"We've arrived at the G-Corporation building."_

_***_

_Because it's right?_

_... That idea went out of the window long ago__._

_Because of contractual obligations?_

_...Are the unit and I that amoral?_

"Sir, we've arrived."

The APC's tracks ground to a halt as he looked to his subordinate, Tashigi with a nod.

"Everyone ready yourselves," Lars commanded.

Several clicks followed in pattern as machine guns were cocked for the ready. Lars slid out the gun's magazine.

_Full, good._

"Everyone remember the briefing?" he called again.

The black armoured soldiers nodded in unison, there orange eyes a mask for insect unity.

"Remember we have two miles to cover in quick time. Once at the designated point we split into two teams, one under Tougou, one under me, is that clear?"

"**Yes sir!**" roared the soldiers.

The door of the vehicle swung open crashing into the sump.

_I hate rain._

Lars' boots were the first to slam into the quagmire, the cold torrents pouring over his face and into all the little cracks of his armour.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

_After we've split, we'll assault the compound from three sides. Me and Tougou leading two groups and the third lead by G Corporation._

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

_Tougou's group will assault from the behind, G Corporation will assault from the front and mine will assault from the side. The three heads of the Cerberus._

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

_At precisely twelve a.m. The Jacks will be fired into the compound from the Chinooks and the assault should draw to a close._

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

_Hopefully._

He rubbed a gloved hand across his face to wipe the cold water obscuring his vision. He knew his unit would be facing former comrades, rogue Tekken Force, supporters of Jin. These people said they wanted money but Lars knew they were trying to make a statement, about Jin, for Jin. They would live for him until the end yet the dead man would only watch with an apathetic gaze.

_As in death as in life._

His eyebrows furrowed.

_Still no word on Jin's body._

The thought was distracting and couldn't help but send an increased shiver to the water drops. Could his nephew be out there... watching?

***

_Yes, Jin was watching but only upon this meeting of bores._

_"So the contracts for the Jacks has been signed?"_

_"Yes, the Mishima Zaibatsu will be the manufacturers but the management will be handled by the G Corporation."_

_"What about Boskonovitch-san's plans for the cyborg?"_

_"Too expensive, they will be shelved."_

_The little men tried to play demi-gods over the invisible as the rain continued to beat against the glass walls. Still Kazuya watched onwards, his body rigid within the seat._

_"Are you listening, Kazuya?"_

_The growling voice caused Kazuya to the burning sidelong gaze of his father._

_"Well?"_

_"Yes, tousan."_

_The reply was too quick. Heihachi's smouldering eyebrow lowered._

_"If you have been listening, then tell me... what has the meeting been about so far?"_

_Er...._

_Jin could feel the boy's emotions trapped in a pneumatic spin cycle, terror and confusion clashed against each other in disharmony._

_"Have you got an answer boy?!"_

_Er..._

_The room was darkened, his world a million and twenty miles away._

_Er..._

_Every suit was an expecting glare, every member a want for respect._

_Especially __**him.**_

_"Heihachi-san, he is just a child."_

_Freeze._

_The soft spoken individual drew the sidelong gaze of Heihachi, his gaze keeping the boy under the scrutiny of his corners._

_"Xiaoyu-san, I suggest you remember who holds the keys to the wallet," he growled, his gaze flicking across the room._

_Mr. Xiaoyu nodded his head slowly before re-seating into incongruity as several other grey suits shifted in their chairs._

_"Good," continued Heihachi, "I gather that everything has needed to be said has been said?"_

_All nodded._

_"Fine then, that concludes this meeting."_

_The shades of grey stood and started their procession to the exit. Kazuya pushed back his metal chair-_

_"Wait, boy."_

_The dark weight that had settled and oppressed within Kazuya sank deeper through into Jin as he heard that growl. The last suit evacuated before it was just the two of them. The rain outside was turning into a torrential downpour as it continued its beat against the glass._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_"You embarrassed me."_

_Heihachi never looked at the boy, only staring into the dead sky._

_"I'm... I'm sorry, tousan."_

_His father whirled around in his chair._

_"Is that all you have to say for yourself?!"_

_Kazuya said nothing, only Jin could hear the thundering of small heart strings. Heihachi's lip reared backwards underneath his bristling moustache._

_A calloused hand lashed out and caught Kazuya by the collar._

_"Aah!"_

_The boy's cry was cut off his body was slammed against the cold concrete._

_**"Answer me, boy!"**_

_"…"_

_Jin's widened gaze took in the sight of Heihachi. All light had been rendered asunder to the void of his hulking silhouette, his eyes blazing with Lucifer's flames as he bared down upon him. Stern grandfather, sneering betrayer and powerful opponent, three images Jin had seen within his lifetime but a fourth was forced upon him, the tyrant of children's nightmares who lurked in the shadows of consciousness. _

_For the one of the few times in his life Jin was cold._

_"You were too weak to answer a simple question," snarled Heihachi, his voice lowered, "you humiliated me in front of them because of your __**incompetence.**__"_

_Jin could feel the shivers running through Kazuya's body, the terror leaking on his eyelashes but still the boy did not react._

_Heihachi leaned in closer, his grip shifting on the boy's neck._

_"You will never..."_

_A flick of his wrist caused Kazuya's head to crack against the wall._

_"Ever."_

_Crack._

_"Repeat."_

_Crack._

_"That."_

_Crack._

_"Mistake._

_Crack._

_"Again."_

_Kazuya's gaze was shut tight but the words of tousan were always audible in the dark._

_"__**Is that clear?**_"

_The boy bit his lip and nodded fast._

_Again the silence of a world so cold seeping through the wall. Heat prickled against the side of his cheek, it's touch harsh to bleed the tender skin._

_"Remember, weaklings don't cry."_

_Heihachi dropped him into darkness..._

_(...Everything swam..._

_A long exhalation._

_Exhausted...am I?_

_It was just a statement, a word as the vision cleared. Pale, yellow light poured upon the booklet._

_Equations... more equations..._

_Both Jin's didn't care._

_The younger Jin slumped within his seat. The older felt the shock, the frozen fear morph in his breast, strangled by a pressure of rocks as the exhaustion entered into his system._

_Too fast..._

_"Are you okay?"_

_I'm fine._

_"You don't sound it..."_

_Why have done this to me?_

_"For understanding, of course."_

_Understanding of what?!_

_"You tell me."_

_What was there to tell?_

_What had he understood?_

_His younger self was now scribbling at the questions, his emotions set at the level of "bored"._

_Heihachi acting like a complete and utter bastard._

_Nothing new there then._

_Kazuya; a mentally abused child..._

_It's wrong._

_Yet..._

_Were those memories genuine?_

_"They all were Jin."_

_You haven't tampered with them?_

_"No, I have not."_

_The tone was of indignation from the voice as he wondered._

_Kazuya's emotions had been a storm of paradoxes, he had felt storms of fear pounding on the surface, sharp icicles of self-hate within the sleet but beneath the sodden ground, large seeds of bitterness grew fat upon the world's nourishment. Those seeds were the ones to grow and then consume him whole..._

(_Yes it was a cruel, hollow laugh yet now I see that it was directed at no one, just himself..__.)_

_His mother's words rang in his mind's ears._

_A small spark of emotion._

_Pity?_

_The pale screen to his right was slammed open, catching the younger Jin's attention. Tall and suited his grandfather stood in the doorway._

_"You still haven't finished?"_

_The younger Jin remained silent, riveted to his chair._

_Damn fool._

_Heihachi folded his arms over his chest._

_"I told you not to got that arcade, didn't I?"_

_His younger self's eyes dropped._

_His grandfather let out a growling sigh._

_"I want the work finished by dinner, is that clear?"_

_The younger Jin nodded once with a slight inclination of his head._

_"Remember weaklings don't give up."_

_Jin felt a cold chill wave through his soul. _

_He slid the door back into place as he walked out. The younger let out relief in a small breath. The older could think of one thought, one question..._

_How lucky was I?_

_"Kazuya-sama!"_

_The cry was echoed as the light from the lamp obscured his vision in stars and blurs. Emotions became effervescent, colours of oil in rain drops as Jin's consciousness was siphoned across time...)_

_...His gaze morphed to tear-smudged lenses and a head that hurt like hell._

_"Kazuya-sama, are you okay?" asked the bleary shape of June._

_Jin heard the whimper of his host and the self pity wash through the fright._

_"Was it Heihachi-sama again?"_

_Her voice had lowered._

_Kazuya remained in whimpe__ring refusal, his eyes barricading the tears._

_June put a hand to his face._

_"Kazuya-sama, I'll know something that will cheer you up."_

_"Really?"_

_She nodded once with a small smile and took him by the hand._

_***_

_11:17__._

Lars' boots paced through the undergrowth, soldiers following as thralls in his wake, each visor dimmed of orange life. Their footsteps were a quiet rustle in the bushes but a rustle that the rain could barely hide.

_I hate this sluggishness__._

Cracck.

Lars' eyes widened. His left hand flicked up as the soldiers stopped.

**Cracck.**

_It sounds like crashing branches._

He motioned with a downward flick of his hand for all the soldiers to crouch.

**Cracck.**

_Who or what ever is making that noise must be either big or stupid._

"What the hell did you think you were doing?!"

_I stand corrected._

"It's damn hard to walk in this area, you know?"

_Was that guy doing a fake Italian accent?_

Lars smirked.

"That doesn't mean having to trample around like a bull..."

_Female._

"You don't know what could be out there."

_Old and with more sense than the other one._

"What you mean? In this forest?!"

"Lorenzo...."

Lars let out a short breath. He checked his watch again.

_11:22... fan! I've got no time for this._

They were standing roughly ten metres away in the bushes, ten metres was enough for two bullets. His right hand moved to the trigger-

A crackle of static.

"Shit, it's the C.O," muttered the older soldier, "yes, sir?"

_Wait..._

"I want you to report back to base immediately Lieutenant Jean," commanded a voice of low bass notes, "a patrol from the has been missing for twenty minutes. The Colonel believes they have finally come."

_Finally come...?_

"Understood, over and out. Lorenzo, let's get moving."

"Yes, m'am."

"Shut up and just move."

The two ran off again through the forest, their footsteps fading in the rustling of bushes. Lars and his men pulled themselves to their feet.

_Seems G Corporation are making their move._

He raised his right arm to his face.

_11:25._

Lars motioned with his right hand to move forward again.

_We have to get moving._

Smalls steps became longer strides as everyone quickened in pace.

"_Finally come...?"_

The part of the message rebounded in his skull as he thought about it.

_Do they know we're coming?_

_How the hell did they know in the first place?!_

It was a question that had so many answers, answers that he could ponder at a desk or in a bar later, not on the battlefield. A battlefield that he would be 'sharing' with other soldiers. Ones he had once trained and considered comrade.

_They chose the side they're on and we chose ours. That's just life._

Lars frowned under his soaked brow.

_Still why am I doing this?_

He inwardly shrugged.

_Act now, think later._

He allowed himself a quick glance left and right.

_Trees seem to be thinning out..._

The boggy ground pounded under his feet as he moved onwards and onwards until-

_At last!_

Lars breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the last of the trees fade out and the rising of the hill.

_Finally at the point of attack._

The bear pounded up the muddy slope.

"Argh!"

His left boot slipped upon the hillside.

Thud.

Lars slammed his right boot down and he stopped. He pushed his feet onwards.

Squelch.

Squelch.

Squelch.

_We're here._

He ducked down low as the men came up behind him. His raised his right wrist to his face.

_11:28._

Eleven twenty eight and a steel hell stretched before Lars' gaze, miles of pipes and towers intertwined together in a maze, a random fortress where a man or machine gun could waiting round every corner. The high pitch blare of an air raid siren resonated outwards from the innards of the building.

Lars unbuttoned a pocket to his left on his belt and produced a pair of binoculars.

_Let's see..._

He flicked his gaze downwards.

_Wire fences reinforced with barb wire... oh great..._

"Move it men!"

Soldiers ran in single and groups from one area to the next, their footwork in mechanical harmony.

_Disciplined and alert... I wouldn't have expected anything else..._

_Thump._

_Thump._

Lars winced.

_Stupid headaches._

"Sir?" asked one of the soldiers.

"It's nothing, Leon."

Leon gave a slow nod before abating. Lars rubbed his right temple, the headache slowing in its beat.

_Better._

He raised the binoculars to his eyes again.

_Four sentries... maybe five...damn this rain!_

"Sir!"

Lars flicked his head right to Tashigi.

"It's st-!"

A whistle.

Two explosions.

Beep beep.

_11:30._

_G Corporation is on the offensive._

**"Look up there!"**

Two gunshots flew overhead.

_"_Fan," he muttered.

He flicked his head to his right.

**"Tashigi get the RPG ready!"**

Lars ducked as successive gunshots tore up the ground in front. He flicked back up, firing down the sights.

**Ratatata.**

One soldier ducked behind the sandbag cover.

The other fell limp over the barricade.

**"Grenade!!"**

Leon's scream.

**"Move!!"**

Lars command.

**Bang.**

One of Lars' own was sent flying into the mud.

_Shit!_

**"Tashigi where the fucks that RPG?!"**

**Bang.**

**"My leg!!"**

**Ratatatata.**

Ratatatata.

All noise so near and distant.

Blood, cordite, sulphur...

A white rocket shot forth.

"Run!!"

**Kaboom.**

Bodies and body parts flew.

A gap had been torn open.

_Heihachi can pay for that one._

**"Daniel, Yomashta come with me! Leon, you, Nina and Kurosev cover me!"**

**"Yes sir!"**

**Ratatatata.**

He ripped the walkie-talkie from his belt.

**"Tashigi, get three others to come with you! We're going in!"**

The crackle of static.

**"Yes sir!"**

Kaboom.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

The three pushed down the hill.

Lars felt his feet slip with every step.

**"Stop them!"**

**Ratatata- Argh!**

_Thanks Leon._

Lars raised his machine gun.

**Ratatata.**

Another dead.

_Reload._

Cha-chunk.

**Ratatata.**

"Argh!"

One caught in the arm.

Lars frowned.

_We're close enough._

His machine gun fell loose.

He pressed fingers to palm.

Ching.

Curved blades sprang from the back of his wrists.

He leapt forth in a kick.

**Crack.**

The first was sent flying backward.

Another soldier was sent flying backwards.

He glanced right.

_Yomashta._

Another soldier aimed his gun at Lars.

_Crap._

**Ratatatatata.**

Lars leapt to the left.

Closed in.

Swept his left arm up in an arc.

Shing.

The barrel was cut clean off.

A spark of purple lightning.

**Slam.**

His right palm connected with the soldier's chest.

_Cracck._

Four ribs had broken.

The soldier folded.

Cla-click.

He glanced behind.

Four soldiers had him in their sights.

Lars shifted his feet.

_Got to-_

**Ratatatatatata.**

Two were shot dead.

**Slam.**

One fell to the floor.

Skull crushed.

_Tashigi._

The fourth blocked the kick with the back of his arm.

**Ratata.**

Three shots from Daniel.

The fourth soldier crumpled.

**"What did you that for?!"**

**"We don't have time to waste!"**

Four shots came from nowhere.

**"There's more coming!"**

Lars grabbed hold of his gun again.

"Let's go."

He walked forward.

Hands.

Feet.

Legs.

Heads.

Skull pieces...

To the feet that stepped over, to the eyes that only glanced, the living and the dead were indistinguishable, all united by the stench that filled Lars' nostrils.

_I hate that smell._

His sodden feet stepped upon solid tile.

_We're in._

***

_(...I'm in._

_Jackpot!_

_A word of shock display upon the machine._

_I knew that surprise once._

_The smoke, the gold dragons hanging overhead watching with their acrylic eyes, the smell of cheap tobacco, the bleeding ears, the chattering of win and loss and of course..._

_Cha-chung!_

_Cha-chung!_

_The old pachinko machine lit up in red and blue LEDs as it vomited more balls for him._

_The younger self __pulled a small smile._

_He wound the lever again, tightening the spring then..._

_Cha-chung!_

_Chaos!_

_Balls of different colour rebounded everywhere over the pins._

_Cha-chung!_

_Cha-chung!_

_Some landed in three and four balls slots._

_Cha-chung!_

_Cha-chung!_

_Jackpot again!_

_He was lucky today._

_Cha-chung!_

_What a satisfying noise knowing that he had blown more money._

_Especially as it wasn't his own._

_He had told Ojii-san that he was __going to an arcade._

_Well, it was a half-truth._

_It didn't matter though._

_The chances of Ojii-san finding out the truth were minute considering the amounts were so small._

_Small but enough to give that little sense of rebellion._

_Cha-chung!_

_The older Jin couldn't help but wish a smirk as he felt the small moment of satisfaction._

_I always loved the older machines._

_Cha-chung!_

_The simple mechanism gave wings to his form, even for only a second._

_He could forget destiny, forget rigorous training._

_He could just... be._

_If O__jii-san found out, so what? More brutal training regimes?_

_That was a price he was willing to risk for what he had._

_He had found a small part of life in a pachinko parlour of Shibuya, Tokyo._

_A life__... a memory._

_Cha-chung._

_The younger Jin smiled__ as he pushed the spring button._

_Ratatatatata__._

_The balls ca__scaded out in a hole at the bottom._

_"Time to leave?"_

_Yes._

_The younger version was already heading for a pair of doors._

_Light blinded Jin's vision._

_Fade out...)_

_Fade in..._

_"We're finally here!"_

_The light morphed into shapes of opal light as Jin heard June's voice. The joy that Jin felt was as if it had exploded out of a tight space in this transition._

_I'm small again._

_This was the first time he truly noticed the difference in size between his younger self and Kazuya as June looked down upon him. It was a sign that he was vulnerable and that was... uncomfortable._

_"Kazuya-sama, do you wish to take a look?" offered June._

_Kazuya's gaze flicked up to the racks of endless shoes, his eyes flitting back and forth until he saw a section that felt so familiar to him. On long rows that were stacked high than his eyes could see. They were his pillars of fortitude as he approached them. Jin couldn't help but want to smirk._

_Some things never change with time._

_The young Kazuya grabbed two pairs of sneakers and turned around with them to June._

_"So which do you want?"_

_"Can I have both?" asked Kazuya with the tiniest amount of pleading in his voice._

_June sighed._

_"It is never bad to want or to covet anything, Kazuya-sama, it is in our nature as living beings," she intoned, taking one pair from Kazuya's hand and placing it back on the rack, "but we must take things in moderation otherwise these little belongings lose their special qualities."_

_"But tousan says that I can have whatever I want," asserted Kazuya with wide eyes._

_June's mouth dipped as her gaze turned away._

_"That's just like Heihachi-san isn't it?" she murmured._

_She turned back to him._

_"Kazuya-sama, there are people like tousan that live in this world who place weights so close to their hearts that in the end the weight become their heart."_

_"You might get in trouble for saying things like that!"_

_She looked straight into his eyes._

_"Kazuya-sama, why do you stand up for him?"_

_His gaze dropped to the floor as he slammed his arms rigid to his sides._

_"Because... because I need to be strong enough."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Tousan says that I'm too weak," he mumbled, his eyes searching the ground for salvation, "I have to be perfect otherwise I'll never be strong enough..."_

_Her eyebrows lowered._

_" You don't have to be perfect, no one expects you to be perfect."_

_Kazuya looked back up at her with a straight gaze._

_"Tousan does."_

_It was__ a sudden flare of bitterness that spat on the four syllables. June's eyes lowered as her lips curved into a sad smile._

_"Kazuya-sama let's go pay for these," she offered._

_He nodded, his face withdrawn._

***

Lars nodded to his lieutenant.

**Ratatatatata.**

He checked his watch.

11:45.

_The Jacks have to get here soon!_

He took his machine gun in both hands.

Cha-chunk.

_Good._

Lars ducked out from behind the pipe.

**Ratatatata.**

_Missed..._

He ducked back behind the pipe.

**Ratatatata.**

Shots from Tashigi.

_We have to get out of this passageway._

**Bang.**

A grenade's explosion.

One enemy soldier lay scattered.

_Lucky the explosion didn't hit us..._

He poked his head out from his left side.

His eyes squinted as his gaze searched the second floor.

_There's a sniper up there_

**Ratatata.**

He moved back.

_Too close._

He took the walkie-talkie from his belt .

The crackle of static.

He spoke into the receiver.

"Tashigi!"

"Yes sir!"

"Throw a smoke grenade on my throw!"

"Yes sir!"

He placed the walkie-talkie back on his belt.

His gaze switched up to Tashigi up on the other side.

Lars motioned with two fingers to his eyes.

Tashigi nodded.

He turned back to Daniel and Yomashta.

He repeated the motion.

They nodded, the orange dimming.

_I hope the range is great enough._

Lars unlatched an E.M.P. grenade from his belt.

_Here goes..._

He pulled the pin and threw it.

**Bam.**

**Bang.**

Tashigi's smoke bomb had detonated.

_Go._

They ran in.

**Ratatatata.**

**"Argh!"**

The body twitched and slumped.

**Ratatata.**

Another body fell to the floor.

**"Urgh."**

Kurosev's cry.

Everything a blur.

Colours of rain swirled in grey

The touch of lingering static.

The choke of smoke

_Have to move._

Leon was running alongside him.

Then...

A fast shriek.

Glosh.

The right side of Leon's scalp exploded.

Lars was showered in dark blood and brain.

_Leon!_

The range wasn't far enough.

The smoke was fading.

A second shot.

**"Argh!"**

Lars' cry.

A hit to the left shoulder.

"Crap..."

His right hand dropped his gun.

It clamped upon the bleeding wound.

His feet stumbled in shock.

**"Lars!!"**

He felt the scope upon his chest.

He felt the breath upon his cold, cold skin.

_Damn it..._

***

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Does it ever stop?_

_"The rain for some never stops."_

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Was it always like this for Kazuya?_

_"Not at first, he once had a loving family..."_

_I have hard time believing that with Heihachi around._

_"Yes, even Heihachi but then his mother died..."_

_..._

_"It fell apart from there..."_

_..._

_"Do you feel any differently about your father?"_

_You expect me to __hate him less?_

_"No, I just wish for you to understand." _

_"Understand what? That he was a mentally abused child?! It was wrong but it never prevented him from becoming what he became!"_

_No... it didn't. _

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Will I ever... awaken?_

_That depends..._

_On what?_

_If you even survive._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_"Kazuya-sama, we're here..."_

_Clunk._

_The little boy unclipped his seatbelt at the sound of the doors unlocking._

_"The fair will be three thousand yen."_

_June nodded handing the driver the notes before turning back to Kazuya._

_"Hold on for a second."_

_She pulled herself out, unfolding her umbrella._

_Cha-chung._

_June opened the door._

_He ducked into the shadow of her __umbrella, taking her hand in eagerness withdrawn. Kazuya's gaze ascended to the neo-gothic architecture of the Mishima Mansion as it stood tall against the metal sky. The leather of his shoes tightened against his ankles as he ascended the marble steps. June pushed against the glass door as they entered._

_"Hello?"_

_Her voice resonated but no one answered._

_She frowned._

_Kazuya swallowed._

_"I see you've returned..."_

_Metaphysical and physical spines crawled._

_Heihachi strode onto the top of the stairs._

_Tap._

_Tap._

_The march__ of souleless feet._

_From an entrance to the right four Yakuza walked into the room_

_"Why are you late, June-san?"_

_"__I was taking your son out shopping, Mishima-sama."_

_Heihachi's gaze intensified, his head tilting back._

_"Did you even ask for permission?"_

_June lowered her head, her eyes staring up from beneath fringe._

_"I didn't think-."_

_"Of course you didn't. If you did you should have asked and you would have known that I would have said no because he already has everything he wants __**here**__."_

_Kazuya felt June's grip on his hand tighten._

_"Are you so sure about that, Mishima-sama?"_

_"Oh-ho, so you're questioning me now?"_

_He leapt over the railings._

_**Crash.**_

_Upon impact the ground had shattered._

_Jin could feel Kazuya's increased breathing as he stared up at June. _

_She stood firm in silence._

_"I commend you for even standing there to face me," complimented Heihachi, "it takes someone with true spirit to question me on such a personal issue."_

_I've done that many times, Heihachi._

_He continued to watch._

_Heihachi's brow had lowered._

_"You think you know what is best for Kazuya?"_

_"After seeing what you've done to him for the past six months, I think I know he deserves better than this."_

_"Six months?! __**Pah! **__I've been there since the beginning," he shouted, thrusting his finger forwards with every point," __**I**__ changed his nappies in the middle of the night when he crapped himself, __**I**__ am the one that brought him all the presents he ever wanted, __**I am the one who has been a true parent to him! **__In six months __**you**__**coddled **__him! __**You**__ made him weak..."_

_June pushed her right foot out in front, swinging her right arm round wide._

_**"He's weak because he is a child, he doesn't need presents, he needs LOVE!!"**_

_Nothing was spoken in reply._

_Nothing, only the slow approach of Heihachi._

_Terror and bitterness were dividing Kazuya in two._

_Should he run behind June?_

_Should he run to Hei-Tousan?_

_Jin could tell this just from his emotions._

_The boy was helpless._

_Stand your ground._

_It was the only way Jin knew._

_Heihachi approached June, her feet shifting two steps._

_He stopped two paces from her and leaned into her ear._

_Kazuya could feel her palm shaking._

_"What I have done for him, that is love."_

_Click._

_Huh?_

_**Bang.**_

_Her grasp slipped._

_Her body fell._

_**Crack.**_

_Kazuya watched._

_Jin watched._

_The Yakuza crouched over her slumped body._

_**Bang.**_

_**Bang.**_

_Kazuya looked._

_Jin looked._

_Her lips were open. Those lips would have made a statement._

_"Clear up this mess," ordered Heihachi, shaking his head._

_Two Yakuza picked up the body by the arms and dragged it away._

_A third ran off to find the cleaning equipment for the large pool of blood staining the floor._

_"Stupid woman..."__ Heihachi muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose._

_Kazuya looked at the stains, his eyes wide._

_A trickle of water slid down his right cheek._

_He flicked it away._

_He may have shed tears._

_Once._

_The cold shaking never stopped though._

_Jin watched._

_..._

_Heihachi turned to Kazuya._

_"Boy, get changed. We're going training__ in Hokkaido."_

_Kazuya nodded fast and then ran past._

**A/N; I am thinking about raising the rating to an M after this chapter. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, regardless of feeback good or bad, I wish you the best.**

**Hplo.**


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